Autor(es):
Sanches-Silva, A. 
; Costa, H.S. ; Albuquerque, T.G. ; Finglas, P.
Data: 2011
Identificador Persistente: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.18/581
Origem: Repositório Científico do Instituto Nacional de Saúde
Assunto(s): Composição dos Alimentos
Descrição
The health promoting properties of carotenoids, namely against cancer and cardiovascular diseases, besides their provitamin A activity, have enhanced the scientific interest on these compounds. In the view of the great number of compounds of this family, the need of developing methods for the simultaneous analysis of the most common compounds of this group is unquestionably required.
Fruits in general and exotic fruits in particular are known to be good sources of carotenoids. Therefore in the present work, mango (Mangifera indica L.) and papaya (Carica papaya L.) were the selected matrices to develop an extraction procedure and a chromatographic method to determine simultaneously seven carotenoids and two vitamins (A and E). The selected carotenoids were α-carotene, β-carotene, β-cryptoxanthin, lutein, lycopene, neoxanthin, violaxanthin and zeaxanthin. The aim is to further apply this method to determine carotenoids in traditional foods from Black Sea Area (BSA) in the frame of the European Project BaSeFood (Sustainable exploitation of bioactive components from the BSA traditional foods).
Preliminary assays were performed in order to establish optimal extraction conditions (e.g. sample amount, extraction solvent, extraction solvent volume, extraction time, etc). Two extraction procedures were optimised: with and without saponification with KOH.
An Ultra-High Pressure Liquid chromatography (Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography, UPLC) method with diode array detection (DAD) was also developed. The column used was an UPLCÒ BEH (2.1 x 50 mm, 1.7 µm particle size).
The major carotenoid identified in mango was β-carotene. The extraction procedure without saponification was best to quantify α-tocopherol, β-cryptoxanthin, lycopene and β-carotene. However, trans-violaxanthin was only possible to quantify using the extraction procedure with saponification.
In what concerns to papaya, only three carotenoids were identified β-cryptoxanthin, lycopene and β-carotene, being lycopene the major carotenoid. For β-cryptoxanthin quantification, it was better to use the extraction procedure with saponification, while the procedure without saponification was more suitable to obtain lycopene and β-carotene. Depending on the fruit and on the carotenoid studied, saponification might be needed. Therefore it is recommended to use both extraction procedures. The chromatographic method allows obtaining excellent separation of the nine compounds in just 22 min.
