Date of Award

8-2001

Level of Access Assigned by Author

Open-Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Food and Nutrition Sciences

Advisor

Alfied A. Bushway

Second Committee Member

Rodney J. Bushway

Third Committee Member

Denise Skonberg

Abstract

This study was conducted to analyze wild Maine cranberries for anthocyanin (ACY), anthocyanidin, organic acid, L-ascorbic acid, and moisture content. Cranberries were analyzed in both the fiesh and fiozen states. Analysis for ACY and anthocyanidin content was performed by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and Capillary Electrophoresis (CE); organic acids by HPLC; and L-ascorbic acid (L-AA) and moisture by AOAC methods for titration and drying, respectively. ACY results showed similar qualitative profiles for all cultivars except one where no detectable ACY were present. Four major peaks and two minor peaks were detected, which have been tentatively identified as the galactosides (Gal), arabinosides (Arab), and glucosides (Glu) of cyanidin (Cy) and peonidin (Pn). Quantitatively, significant differences (p<0.05) existed among the different cultivars for total and individual ACY content, with totals ranging fiom 9.64 to 126.05 mgA00g and 13.1 1 to 94.48 mg/100g for fiesh and fiozen samples, respectively (results reported as Cy-3-Gal). The proportion of individual ACY content varied notably with Cy-3-Gal comprising 20-35% of the total, Cy-3-Arab 14-22%, Pn-3-Gal30-45%, and Pn-3-Arab 13-18%. Aglycones obtained through acid hydrolysis of the ACY and analyzed by HPLC resulted in 55% Cy and 35% Pn. The CE method developed in this study employed an acidic run buffer, which kept the aglycones in their flavyliurn cation form. Thus, the same concentrations of pigments used in HPLC were applied to CE. For comparison of methods, HPLC and CE analyses were performed on commercial cranberries; Results showed that the methods were comparable despite the noisy baseline of the CE online detection. The correlation coefficient was 0.967. The primary organic acids in cranberries are citric, malic, quinic, and L-ascorbic. Mean organic acid content of fresh and frozen berries varied slightly (2041 mg/100g and 2035 mg/100g, respectively) despite the large differences in individual acids. Malic was the primary acid in fresh berries at 64%. Citric and quinic made up 25% and 11%, respectively. In the frozen berry, citric and malic acids were evenly matched at 42% and 4 1 %, respectively. Quinic remained low at 17%.

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