Abstract

Blueberries are widely consumed for their flavor and complex array of antioxidants and other beneficial phytochemicals. Central to studies on blueberries is the ability to extract antioxidants. For appropriate analysis, the extracted compounds must represent those contained in the blueberry without bias or loss of information. Given the complex array of phytochemicals present, extracting these chemicals from blueberries is a complex task and is the focus of much debate in the current literature. While many studies have examined the best extraction technique to maximize the concentration of extracted antioxidants, there remains no systematic study on the effect of extraction conditions and technique on the variety of antioxidants extracted from the blueberry samples. The current study fills this gap by applying High-Performance Liquid Chromatography combined with novel forms of post-column derivatization and the commonly used CUPRAC assay to examine the range and concentration of antioxidants extracted. We have found that solvent choice plays a large role in determining the variety of compounds extracted, with acidification, extraction time, and temperature having minimal effect, and acetone has been shown to provide extraction of the greatest range and highest concentration of compounds.

摘要

蓝莓因其风味和复杂的抗氧化剂和其他有益植物化学物质而被广泛食用。蓝莓研究的核心是提取抗氧化剂的能力。为了进行适当的分析，提取的化合物必须代表蓝莓中所含的化合物，没有偏差或信息丢失。鉴于存在复杂的植物化学物质，从蓝莓中提取这些化学物质是一项复杂的任务，也是当前文献中争论的焦点。虽然许多研究已经检验了最佳提取技术，以最大限度地提高提取的抗氧化剂的浓度，但目前还没有系统研究提取条件和技术对从蓝莓样品中提取的各种抗氧化剂的影响。目前的研究通过应用高效液相色谱结合新型柱后衍生化和常用的 CUPRAC 测定来检查提取的抗氧化剂的范围和浓度，从而填补了这一空白。我们发现，溶剂的选择在决定提取的化合物种类方面发挥着重要作用，酸化、提取时间和温度的影响最小，而丙酮已被证明可以提供最大范围和最高浓度的化合物提取。