Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Phenolic profiling and antioxidant capacity in flowers, leaves and peels of Tunisian cultivars of Punica granatum L.

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Journal of Food Science and Technology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The comprehensive phenolic fingerprints of flowers, peels and leaves of two Tunisian Punica granatum L. cultivars, namely Nabli and Gabsi, were investigated. The highest phenolic content was recorded in the Nabli flowers, followed by Gabsi peels extracts (152.6 and 125.8 mg gallic acid equivalent 100 g−1, respectively) while flavonoids and flavonols were highest in Gabsi peels (19.2 and 26.0 mg Rutin equivalent per 100 g−1). Besides, the antioxidant capacity was the highest in Gabsi peels (144.4 mg gallic acid equivalent 100 g−1) and in Nabli flowers (161.6 mg gallic acid equivalent per 100 g−1. Methanol extracts of all three plant portions of both cultivars were screened by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to quadruple time of flight mass spectrometry, and the identified phenolics were further quantified. Nabli cultivar showed higher contents of flavonoids (in flowers and leaves), while phenolic acids were abundant in Gabsi leaves. Multivariate statistics highlighted differences in phenolic profile among organs and cultivars. These results showed that the pomegranate portions investigated are a valuable source of bioactive compounds with health-promoting properties, mainly belonging to the phenolic class of flavonoids.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Artik N, Murakami H, Mori T (1998) Determination of phenolic compounds in pomegranate juice by HPLC. Fruit Process 12:492–499

    Google Scholar 

  • Aviram M, Volkova N, Coleman R, Dreher M, Reddy ML, Ferreira D, Rosenblat M (2008) Phenolics from the peels, arils, and flowers are antiatherogenic: studies in vivo in atherosclerotic apolipoprotein E-deficient (E0) mice and in vitro in cultured macrophages and lipoproteins. J Agric Food Chem 56:1148–1157

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bagchi D (2006) Nutraceuticals and functional foods regulations in the United States and around the world. Toxicology 221:1–3

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Benzie IFF, Strain JJ (1996) The ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP) as a measure of antioxidant power: the FRAP assay. Anal Biochem 239:70–76

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bernal J, Mendiola JA, Ibánez E, Cifuentes A (2011) Advanced analysis of nutraceuticals. J Pharm Biomed Anal 55:758–774

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Elfalleh W, Nasri N, Marzougui N, Thabti I, M’rabet A, Yahya Y, Lachiheb B, Guasmi F, Ferchichi A (2009) Physicochemical properties and DPPH-ABTS scavenging activity of some local pomegranate (Punica granatum) ecotypes. Int J Food Sci Nutr 60:197–210

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Elfalleh W, Tlili N, Nasri N, Yahia Y, Hannachi H, Chaira N, Ying M, Ferchichi A (2011a) Antioxidant capacities of phenolic compounds and tocopherols from Tunisian pomegranate (Punica granatum) fruits. J Food Sci 76:707–713

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Elfalleh W, Ying M, Nasri N, Sheng-Hua H, Guasmi F, Ferchichi A (2011b) Fatty acids from Tunisian and Chinese pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) seeds. Int J Food Sci Nutr 62:200–206

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Elfalleh W, Hannachi H, Tlili N, Yahia Y, Nasri N, Ferchichi A (2012) Total phenolic contents and antioxidant activities of pomegranate peel, seed, leaf and flower. J Med Plant Res 6:4724–4730

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • El-kar C, Mtimet N, Ferchichi A, Bouajila J (2013) Relationships between fruit acceptability and health-case of seven pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) juices. Food Nutr Sci 4:119–130

    Google Scholar 

  • Fawole OA, Opara UL (2016) Stability of total phenolic concentration and antioxidant capacity of extracts from pomegranate co-products subjected to in vitro digestion. BMC Complement Altern Med 6:358

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Fischer UA, Dettmann JS, Carle R, Kammerer DR (2011) Impact of processing and storage on the phenolic profiles and contents of pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) juices. Eur Food Res Technol 233:797–816

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gómez-Caravaca AM, Verardo V, Toselli M, Segura-Carretero A, Fernández-Gutiérrez A, Caboni MF (2013) Determination of the major phenolic compounds in pomegranate juices by HPLC-DAD-ESI-MS. J Agric Food Chem 61:5328–5337

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hasnaoui N, Jbir R, Mars M, Trifi M, Kamal-Eldin A, Melgarejo P, Hernandez F (2011) Organic acids, sugars and anthocyanins contents in juices of Tunisian pomegranate fruits. Int J Food Prop 14:741–757

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hu Y, Xu J, Hu Q (2003) Evaluation of antioxidant potential of Aloe vera (Aloe barbadensis Miller) extracts. J Agric Food Chem 51:7788–7791

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Huang THW, Peng G, Kota BP, Li GQ, Yamahara J, Roufogalis BD (2005) Anti-diabetic action of Punica granatum flower extract: activation of PPAR-gamma and identification of an active component. Toxicol Appl Pharmacol 207:160–169

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Jurenka JS (2008) Therapeutic applications of pomegranate (Punica granatum L.): a review. Altern Med Rev 13:128–144

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kaur G, Jabbar Z, Athar M, Alam MS (2006) Punica granatum (pomegranate) flower extract possesses potent antioxidant activity and abrogates Fe-NTA induced hepatotoxicity in mice. Food Chem Toxicol 44:984–993

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lei F, Zhang XN, Wang W, Xing DM, Xie WD, Su H, Du LJ (2008) Evidence of anti-obesity effects of the pomegranate leaf extract in high-fat diet induced obese mice. Int J Obes 31:1023–1029

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lin JY, Tang CY (2007) Determination of total phenolic and flavonoid contents in selected fruits and vegetables, as well as their stimulatory effect on mouse splenocyte proliferation. Food Chem 101:140–147

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lucini L, Pellizzoni M, Pellegrino R, Molinari GP, Colla G (2015) Phytochemical constituents and in vitro radical scavenging activity of different Aloe species. Food Chem 170:501–507

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mars M (2000) Pomegranate plant material: genetic resources and breeding, a review. In: Melgarejo P, Martínez-Nicolás JJ, Martínez-Tomé J (eds) Production, processing and marketing of pomegranate in the Mediterranean region: advances in research and technology. CIHEAM, Zaragoza, pp 55–62 (Options Méditerranéennes: Série A. Séminaires Méditerranéens; n. 42)

  • Mars M, Marrakchi M (1999) Diversity among pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) germplasm in Tunisia. Genet Resour Crop Evol 46:461–467

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mekni M, Dhibi M, Kharroubi W, Hmida RB, Cheraif I, Hammami M (2014) Natural conjugated and trans fatty acids in seed oils and phytochemicals in seed extracts issued from three Tunisian pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) cultivars. Int J Curr Microbiol App Sci 3(8):778–792

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mohajer S, Taha RM, Azmi SZ (2016) Phytochemical screening and potential of natural dye colourant from pomegranate (Punica granatum L.). Pigm Resin Technol 45:38–44

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mphahlele RR, Fawole OA, Makunga NP, Umezuruike L, Opara UL (2016) Effect of drying on the bioactive compounds, antioxidant, antibacterial and antityrosinase activities of pomegranate peel. BMC Complement Altern Med 16:143

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Parmar N, Singh N, Kaur A, Thakur S (2017) Comparison of color, anti-nutritional factors, minerals, phenolic profile and protein digestibility between hard-to-cook and easy-to-cook grains from different kidney bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) accessions. J Food Sci Technol 54(4):1023–1034

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Qu W, Breksa AP, Pan Z, Ma H (2012) Quantitative determination of major polyphenol constituents in pomegranate products. Food Chem 132:1585–1591

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rocchetti G, Lucini L, Chiodelli G, Giuberti G, Montesano D, Masoero F, Trevisan M (2017a) Impact of boiling on free and bound phenolic profile and antioxidant activity of commercial gluten-free pasta. Food Res Int 100:69–77

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rocchetti G, Chiodelli G, Giuberti G, Masoero F, Trevisan M, Lucini L (2017b) Evaluation of phenolic profile and antioxidant capacity in gluten-free flours. Food Chem 228:367–373

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rocchetti G, Chiodelli G, Giuberti G, Ghisoni S, Baccolo G, Blasi F, Montesano D, Trevisan M, Lucini L (2018a) UHPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS profile of polyphenols in Goji berries (Lycium barbarum L.) and its dynamics during in vitro gastrointestinal digestion and fermentation. J Funct Foods 40:564–572

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Rocchetti G, Chiodelli G, Giuberti G, Lucini L (2018b) Bioaccessibility of phenolic compounds following in vitro large intestine fermentation of nuts for human consumption. Food Chem 245:633–640

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rothwell JA, Pérez-Jiménez J, Neveu V, Medina-Ramon A, M’Hiri N, Garcia-Lobato P, Manach C, Knox C, Eisner R, Wishart DS, Scalbert A (2013) Phenol-Explorer 3.0: a major update of the Phenol-Explorer database to incorporate data on the effects of food processing on polyphenol content. Database. https://doi.org/10.1093/database/bat070

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Shahidi F, Zhong Y (2015) Measurement of antioxidant activity. J Funct Foods 18:757–781

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sreekumar S, Sithul H, Muraleedharan P, Azeez JM, Sreeharshan S (2014) Pomegranate fruit as a rich source of biologically active compounds. Biomed Res Int. Article ID 686921

  • Wang J, Loberg R, Taichman RS (2006) The pivotal role of CXCL12 (SDF-1)/CXCR4 axis in bone metastasis. Cancer Metastasis Rev 25:573–587

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Worley B, Powers R (2013) Multivariate analysis in metabolomics. Current. Metabolomics 1:92–107

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Yermakov AI, Arasimov VV, Yarosh NP (1987) Methods of biochemical analysis of plants. Agropromizdat, Leningrad

    Google Scholar 

  • Zaouay F, Mena P, Garcia-Viguera C, Mars M (2012) Antioxidant activity and physico-chemical properties of Tunisian grown pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) cultivars. Ind Crops Prod 40:81–89

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang L, Fu Q, Zhang Y (2011) Composition of anthocyanins in pomegranate flowers and their antioxidant activity. Food Chem 127:1444–1449

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

GR was recipient of a fellowship from the Doctoral School on the Agro-Food System (Agrisystem) of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Piacenza, Italy) whereas BF received a traveling fellowship from the University of Tunis El-Manar (Tunis, Tunisia).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Sciences, University of Tunis El-Manar II, Campus Academia, 2092, Tunis, Tunisia

    Boutheina Fellah

  2. Laboratory of Aridoculture and Oasian Cultures, Institute of Arid Regions of Medenine, 4119, Tunis, Tunisia

    Boutheina Fellah

  3. Unit of Research of Plant Ecology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Tunis El-Manar II, Campus academia, 2092, Tunis, Tunisia

    Marwa Bannour

  4. Department of Animal Science, Food and Nutrition, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Via Emilia Parmense 84, 29122, Piacenza, Italy

    Gabriele Rocchetti

  5. Department for Sustainable Food Process, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, via Emilia Parmense 84, 29122, Piacenza, Italy

    Luigi Lucini

  6. National Institute of Agronomy, Tunis, Tunisia

    Ali Ferchichi

Authors
  1. Boutheina Fellah
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Marwa Bannour
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Gabriele Rocchetti
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Luigi Lucini
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Ali Ferchichi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gabriele Rocchetti.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

13197_2018_3286_MOESM1_ESM.png

Validation of OPLSDA discriminant model on non-edible portions of pomegranate cultivars; Hotelling’s T2 using 95% and 99% confidence limits is provided in the upper panel [A], whereas outcome of permutation test (N = 100) is given in the lower one [B] (PNG 214 kb)

13197_2018_3286_MOESM2_ESM.xlsx

Whole list of phenolic compounds identified in flowers, leaves and peels of “Gabsi” and “Nabli” pomegranate cultivars, together with annotations, composite mass spectra and cumulative intensities of major phenolic classes of Gabsi and Nabli cultivars, as gained by UHPLC-ESI/QTOF-MS. Unsupervised hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) heat map (similarity: Euclidean; linkage rule: Ward), principal component analysis (PCA) score plot and Volcano plot analysis (p < 0.01, Bonferroni multiple testing correction, and fold-change cut-off = 5) are also provided (XLSX 29079 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Fellah, B., Bannour, M., Rocchetti, G. et al. Phenolic profiling and antioxidant capacity in flowers, leaves and peels of Tunisian cultivars of Punica granatum L.. J Food Sci Technol 55, 3606–3615 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-018-3286-8

Download citation

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-018-3286-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation