Phytochemicals determination and classification in purple and red fleshed potato tubers by analytical methods and near infrared spectroscopy

• Published in: Journal of the science of food and agriculture Vol. 96; no. 6; pp. 1888 - 1899
• Main Authors: Tierno, Roberto, López, Ainara, Riga, Patrick, Arazuri, Silvia, Jarén, Carmen, Benedicto, Leire, Ruiz de Galarreta, José I
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01-04-2016; John Wiley and Sons, Limited
• Subjects: Anthocyanins; Antioxidants; Ascorbic Acid - chemistry; Carotenoids; Carotenoids - chemistry; Classification; Food science; Health; Infrared spectroscopy; monomeric anthocyanins; NIRS; Phytochemicals; Plant Tubers - chemistry; Potatoes; Solanum tuberosum - chemistry; Solanum tuberosum L; soluble phenolics; Spectrophotometry, Infrared - methods; Spectrum analysis; Vitamin C; NIRS; soluble phenolics; carotenoids; Solanum tuberosum L; vitamin C; monomeric anthocyanins
• ISSN: 0022-5142; 1097-0010
• DOI: 10.1002/jsfa.7294

BACKGROUND
Over the last two decades, the attractive colours and shapes of pigmented tubers and the increasing concern about the relationship between nutrition and health have contributed to the expansion of their consumption and a specialty market. Thus, we have quantified the concentration of health promoting compounds such as soluble phenolics, monomeric anthocyanins, carotenoids, vitamin C, and hydrophilic antioxidant capacity, in a collection of 18 purple‐ and red‐fleshed potato accessions.
RESULTS
Cultivars and breeding lines high in vitamin C, such as Blue Congo, Morada and Kasta, have been identified. Deep purple cultivars Violet Queen, Purple Peruvian and Vitelotte showed high levels of soluble phenolics, monomeric anthocyanins, and hydrophilic antioxidant capacity, whereas relatively high carotenoid concentrations were found in partially yellow coloured tubers, such as Morada, Highland Burgundy Red, and Violet Queen.
CONCLUSION
The present characterisation of cultivars and breeding lines with high concentrations of phytochemicals is an important step both to support the consideration of specialty potatoes as a source of healthy compounds, and to obtain new cultivars with positive nutritional characteristics. Moreover, by using near infrared spectroscopy a non‐destructive identification and classification of samples with different levels of phytochemicals is achieved, offering an unquestionable contribution to the potato industry for future automatic discrimination of varieties. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry