Antioxidant activity and phenolic composition in Pomegranate (Punica granatum, L.) genotypes from south Italy by UHPLC/Orbitrap-MS approach

BACKGROUND: Pomegranate fruits are a rich source of polyphenols with numerous health-promoting effects. Pomegranate juices of five genotypes ("Mollar", "Kingdom", "Dente di Cavallo", and two old populations "Francofonte" and "Santa Tecla") were evaluated regarding anthocyanin and non-anthocyanin phenolic contents using UHPLC/Orbitrap-MS. Moreover total antioxidant activity (TAA) was evaluated using ABTS assay. RESULTS: 23 phenolic compounds were identified. Cyanidin-3,5-O-diglucoside and pelargonidin-3,5-O-diglucoside were the most representative anthocyanins in all genotypes; Santa Tecla population had the highest content of these anthocyanins, 97.64 mg/L and 40.29 mg/L respectively. In Francofonte population, ferulic acid hexoside was the most abundant compound (391.18 mg/L). Total antioxidant activity values ranged between 221.5 and 36.73 ?mol Trolox Equivalents/100 ml of juice. High Total Antioxidant Activity (TAA) value was recorded for Santa Tecla pomegranate population. CONCLUSION: In this paper, UHPLC/Orbitrap-MS approach was employed, for the first time, to identify the phenolic compound profiling in five pomegranate genotypes. Total antioxidant activity was analyzed using ABTS assay and the results showed a significant variability in nutraceutical potential of studied pomegranate genotypes. The inclusion of phenolic information in the Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) allowed reaching very good discriminations among genotypes.