Anthocyanins, Phenolic Acids and Antioxidant Properties of Juçara Fruits (Euterpe edulis M.) Along the On-tree Ripening Process

Abstract

Juçara (Euterpe edulis M.) fruits are an interesting source of phenolic compounds, mainly anthocyanins, making them valuable to the food and pharmaceutical industries. Juçara fruits were harvested along the on-tree ripening process between March and June as practiced in Paraná state, Brazil and examined for their total anthocyanin content (TAC), total phenolic content (TPC), total phenolic acid (TPA) and total antioxidant capacity (TAA). Overall, TAC increased (91.52-236.19 mg cyanidin-3-glucoside equivalent/100 g dm) whereas TPC (81.69-49.09 mg GAE/g dm) and TPA (44.27-30.95 mg/100 g dm) decreased during ripening of juçara fruits. Use of tandem mass spectrometry allowed the identification of cyanidin-3,5-diglucoside, peonidin-3-glucoside and peonidin-3-rutinoside for the first time in juçara fruits. The analysis of the phenolic acids by HPLC-MS/MS indicated the presence of gallic, protocatechuic, p-hydroxybenzoic, vanillic, chlorogenic, caffeic, syringic, p-coumaric, sinapinic and ferulic acids. The high antioxidant capacity using DPPH radical scavenging capacity (655.89-745.32 μmol TE/g dm) and ORAC assays (1088.10-2071.55 μmol TE/g dm) showed that juçara fruits have potential as a source of novel natural antioxidants for disease prevention and health promotion, and also as natural food additives for developing new functional food products.

Sensory evaluation and antioxidant capacity as quality parameters in the development of a banana, strawberry and juçara smoothie

“…Physicochemical characteristics, bioactive compounds and antioxidant capacity of banana, strawberry and juçara pulps. anthocyanins content represented, in majority, by cyanidin-3-rutinoside (Bicudo et al, 2014).…”

“…Juçara (Euterpe edulis Martius), a typical palm from Brazilian Atlantic Forest, produces fruits rich in compounds potentially antioxidants such as the anthocyanins (Bicudo et al, 2014;Schulz et al, 2015). On Brazilian market products containing high amounts of juçara or açaí pulp are very well accepted, which is not observed in the foreign market.…”

Chemical composition, bioactive compounds and antioxidant capacity of juçara fruit (Euterpe edulis Martius) during ripening

“…However, interest in these berries has arisen particularly due to their high in vitro antioxidant properties, attributed to their high content of phenolic compounds, such phenolic acids, anthocyanins and other flavonoids (Bicudo, Ribani, & Beta, 2014;Borges et al, 2013;Cardoso et al, 2015;De Brito et al, 2007).…”

“…Therefore, phenolics are generally associated with health-promoting properties and the prevention of several degenerative diseases (Oroian & Escriche, 2015). The results of several studies have indicated that juçara fruit may exert antioxidant effects in vitro (Bicudo et al, 2014;Borges et al, 2011;Vieira, Cavalcanti, Meireles, & Hubinger, 2013) and in an animal model (De Castro et al, 2014). The extract from juçara berries also exhibits strong antioxidant activity and antiproliferative activity against Vero cells (Borges et al, 2013).…”

Bromatological analysis, phytochemical and antioxidant potential of carnauba (Copernicia prunifera (Mill.) H.E. Moore) fruit

“…These data show that the extract in ethanol has antioxidant ability expressively higher than that of the extract in hexane. This is possibly related to the fact that phenols compounds known for their good antioxidant ability (Boulekbache-Makhlouf et al, 2013;Bicudo et al, 2014), are present in a higher proportion in the ethanol extract, justifying the result. The antioxidant capacity of various tropical fruits was studied by Rufino et al (2010), who reported the pulp of the fruit of carnauba presented a high antioxidant activity of 3549±184 g/g DPPH, for the fresh matter and 4877±24.30 g/g DPPH, based on DM.…”