Carotenoid and Tocopherol Composition of Leaves, Buds, and Flowers of Capparis spinosa Grown Wild in Tunisia

Abstract

High-performance liquid chromatography was used to determine carotenoids (beta-carotene, lutein, neoxanthin, and violaxanthin) and tocopherols of leaves, buds, and flowers of Tunisian Capparis spinosa. This plant shows strong resistance to hard environmental conditions, and it is one of the most commonly found aromatics in the Mediterranean kitchen. In this study, the means of the total carotenoids were 3452.5 +/- 1639.4, 1002 +/- 518.5, and 342.7 +/- 187.9 microg/g fresh weight (FW) in leaves, buds, and flowers, respectively. Lutein accounts for the high content. Violaxanthin provided the lowest portion of the total carotenoids. The principal form of tocopherol detected in leaves was alpha-tocopherol (20.19 +/- 10 mg/100 g FW). In buds and flowers, there were both alpha- (49.12 +/- 17.48 and 28.68 +/- 9.13 mg/100 g FW, respectively) and gamma-tocopherol (48.13 +/- 15.08 and 27.8 +/- 16.01 mg/100 g FW, respectively). The combined content of pro-vitamin A and vitamin E in capers encourages researchers to more explore and find developments for this plant.

Phenolic Compounds and Vitamin Antioxidants of Caper (Capparis spinosa)

“…In flower buds, the content of these compounds ranged between 1.14±0.19 mg/100 g FW (T) and 9.09± 0.39 mg/100 g FW (M). These differences may be due to geographic differences, which is in agreement with previous studies [24,28].…”

“…The predominant isomer in C. spinosa leaves was α-tocopherol (more than 99%, except ST 79.32%) as it occurs for most of the plant species [25], while γ-tocopherol was generally more abundant in flower buds compared to leaves, as cited by other authors [24,26]. Recently, vitamin E has attracted much attention; it has been widely studied for its anti-aging, anticancer and anti-atherosclerosis effect.…”

“…The highest value was detected in samples from Tataouine (3.96±0.40 mg/100 g FW) while the lowest value was detected in samples from GM (2.19±0.12 mg/100 g FW). This difference may be due to the effect of the location, harvest and extraction techniques as cited by other authors [23,24].…”

Pharmacological Properties of Capparis spinosa Linn

“…Interestingly, a study has revealed the presence of both α-and γ-tocopherol in buds of C. spinosa as well as an appreciable level of vitamin C [20]. Lutein and Violaxanthin are the main carotenoids and the principal form of tocopherol detected in leaves was alpha-tocopherol [34]. Other investigations have demonstrated that C. spinosa contains in large amounts many secondary metabolites like flavonoids (rutin, quercetin, quercetin-3-rutinoside, kaempferol-3-rutinoside) phenloic components, different alkaloids (capparispine, capparispine 26-O-β-d-glucoside and cadabicine 26-O-β-d-glucoside hydrochloride) and organic acids [21,35].…”

Egg production and quality characteristics of laying hens fed diets supplemented with dry caper (Capparis spinosa) leaf powder

“…Caper is one of the most common aromatic plants found in the Mediterranean Basin. The main producer of Caper plants are countries from the Mediterranean Basin such as Turkey, Morocco, Spain, Greece, France and Italy where Capparis spinosa is predominant and the most important commercial species (Tlili et al, 2009;Yildirim and Gürkan, 2010).…”