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The profile of bioactive compounds (carotenoids, tocopherols, tocotrienols, phytosterols, and squalene) in oils recovered from the kernels of 28 plum varieties of hexaploid species Prunus domestica L. and diploid plums Prunus cerasifera Ehrh. and their crossbreeds were studied. Oil yields in plum kernels of both P. cerasifera and P. domestica was in wide ranges of 22.6-53.1 and 24.2-46.9% (w/w) dw, respectively. The contents of total tocochromanols, carotenoids, phytosterols, and squalene was significantly affected by the variety and ranged between 70.7 and 208.7 mg/100 g of oil, between 0.41 and 3.07 mg/100 g of oil, between 297.2 and 1569.6 mg/100 g of oil, and between 25.7 and 80.4 mg/100 g of oil, respectively. Regardless of the cultivar, β-sitosterol and γ-tocopherol were the main minor lipophilic compounds in plum kernel oils and constituted between 208.5 and 1258.7 mg/100 g of oil and between 60.5 and 182.0 mg/100 g of oil, respectively. Between the studied plum species, significant differences were recorded for δ-tocopherol (p = 0.007), 24-methylenecycloartanol (p = 0.038), and citrostadienol (p = 0.003), but they were insufficient for discrimination by PCA.

We studied the content of tocopherols, tocotrienols and carotenoids in oil extracted from the kernels of 15 apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) genotypes and the associated oil yield of the studied samples. The oil yield in apricot kernels was in a wide range of 27.2-61.4% (w/w) dry weight basis. For each class of studied compounds (tocochromanols and carotenoids), a three-fold difference was found between the lowest and the highest content (78.8-258.5 and 0.15-0.53 mg/100 g of oil, respectively). γ-Tocopherol accounted for 91-94% of total tocochromanols detected in all tested samples. Lutein, zeaxanthin, β-cryptoxanthin and β-carotene were the main compounds among the eight different carotenoids detected in apricot kernel oils; they comprised 76-94% of the total carotenoids content, and compositions were characteristic for specific genotypes. The oil yield and content of lipophilic antioxidants in apricot kernel oils were significantly affected by the genotype. The oil yield was negatively correlated with the total amount of tocochromanols (r = −0.910) and carotenoids (r = −0.704) in apricot kernel oils.

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Lipophilic bioactive compounds in oils recovered from the seeds of eight pear (Pyrus communis L.) cultivars were studied. Oil yield in pear seeds ranged between 16.3 and 31.5 % (w/w) dw. The main fatty acids were palmitic acid (6.13-8.52 %), oleic acid (27.39-38.17 %) and linoleic acid (50.73-63.78 %), all three representing 96-99 % of the total detected fatty acids. The range of total tocochromanols was between 120.5 and 216.1 mg/100 g of oil. Independent of the cultivar, the γ-tocopherol was the main tocochromanol and constituted approximately 88 %. The contents of the carotenoids and squalene were between 0.69-2.99 and 25.5-40.8 mg/100 g of oil, respectively. The β-sitosterol constituted 83.4-87.6 % of total sterols contents, which ranged between 276.4 and 600.1 mg/100 g of oil. Three significant correlations were found between oil yield and total contents of sterols (r = −0.893), tocochromanols (r = −0.955) and carotenoids (r = −0.685) in pear seed oils.

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