Phenolic Composition of Malus baccata Fruit

Abstract

Natural populations of Malus baccata (L.) Borkh. occur in eastern Siberia and Primorsky Krai in addition to the Mongolian People's Republic and northern China. The plant grows in river valleys, on islands, and on steppes and shrubsteppes. It is an exceptionally frost-resistant representative of the genus. The trees can withstand temperatures as low as -50°C.Polyphenolic compounds, primarily flavonoids contained in apples, are known to be involved in the regulation of human physiological functions. The qualitative and quantitative compositions of phenolic compounds (PC) in various species and varieties of apples and even a single variety growing under different ecological conditions vary regularly [1][2][3][4]. The spectrum of polyphenols is typically species-specific for apples and consists of 16 compounds, i.e., quercetin and its glycosides, phloridzin, phloretin, procyanidins, catechin, epicatechin, and several cyanidin glycosides and chlorogenic, cinnamic, and caffeic acids [4][5][6][7].The literature contains much information on the PC contents in cultivated varieties grown in Europe, America, and China [2][3][4][5][6][7]. The biochemical composition of fruit from M. baccata, which is unique for its ability to fruit under extreme conditions, is practically unstudied. Therefore, the goal of the present work was to analyze the qualitative and quantitative compositions of PC in fruit from two forms of M. baccata.The dry weight (~30% of the raw mass) of M. baccata fruit was slightly greater than that of cultivated varieties (~24%). This seemed logical if the comparatively small (0.75 cm in diameter) size of M. baccata fruit was considered [8,9]. The ratio of sugar content to acid number was reported for dessert varieties (25-30), for Antonovka (~10) [10], and for the studied fruit (~1.5). The vitamin C content in M. baccata fruit was comparable (6.5-7.5 mg%) to that in cultivated varieties grown in European Russia (from 5 to 50 mg%).We obtained samples of two ecological forms of M. baccata, tall and dwarf, grown under identical conditions in order to estimate intraspecies variations in the fruit chemical composition [9,11]. The principal studied parameters were the dry fruit mass, sugar content, acidity, and vitamin C content and did not differ significantly for both forms (Table 1).The PC contents (calculated as quercetin) in both ecological forms differed considerably and were 1.01 r 0.5 mg/g of the fruit raw mass for tall and 1.56 r 0.12 mg/g for dwarf. The PC content for cultivated dessert varieties varied from 0.3 to 5.0 mg/g of raw mass [2,3]. This was comparable with their contents in both forms of the studied fruit. Table 2 shows that the fruit PC included 10 principal compounds, i.e., procyanidin B1, anthocyans, phloretin, phloridzin, (+)-catechin, (-)-epicatechin, and quercetin glycosides and chlorogenic, cinnamic, and caffeic acids. The major constituents were procyanidin B1 (from 324.5 r 28.3 to 636.4 r 52.8 Pg/g of raw mass), quercetin glycosides (from 256.5 r 23.1 to 465.7 r 34.5 mg/g of raw mass), ...

Phytochemical composition and antioxidant activity of Malus baccata (L.) Borkh. fruits

“…The moisture content in Malus baccata fruits was 75.53±0.34%, while the total dry weight was 24.47%. Our values for dry matter were higher than finding of Hallmann et al (2011) and it was in accordance with reported values for cultivated varieties (approximately 24%) and lower than naturally growing Siberian representatives (approximately 30% of the raw mass) (Rudikovskaya et al 2014). In our study, moisture content in Malus baccata fruits collected from UK was close to values reported for Indian representatives -78.53% (Kumari and Dhaliwal 2017).…”

“…The fruit is known by the name of sheed palek, palanu and palek locally in India (Kumari and Dhaliwal 2017). Тhis plant is widely distributed throughout the world, as its natural populations occur in Asia (mainly Russia -eastern Siberia, Primorsky Krai; Mongolia, Northern China, India, especially in Himachal Pradesh) and cultivated varieties grown in Europe and China (Hallmann et al 2011;Rudikovskaya et al 2014;Kumari and Dhaliwal 2017;Dadwal et al 2018). Malus baccata was widely grown as a popular ornamental tree in the gardens and parks of Europe, North America and South America (Yoshizawa et al 2004;Aladedunye and Matthäus 2014;Kumari and Dhaliwal 2017).…”

“…Fruits are usually of small size, cold-field edible fruit, subacidic to sweet in taste with some astringent taste. The plant grows in river valleys, on islands, and on the steppes and shrub steppes (Rudikovskaya et al 2014). The species are widely used as an apple rootstock because of its high cold tolerance (Li et al 2017).…”

“…The species are widely used as an apple rootstock because of its high cold tolerance (Li et al 2017). It is an exceptionally frost-resistant representative of the genus, as the trees can withstand temperatures under-50°C (Rudikovskaya et al 2014). Wild crab apple fruits are a rich source of phenolic compounds, including anthocyanins (Sharma and Nath 2016).…”

“…Major phenolic compounds found in extracts from its fruits were chlorogenic acid, quercetin-3-Gal/Glu, quercetin-3-Xyl/Ara, phloretin-2-xyloside,quercetin-3-rhamnoside, epicatechins and phloridzin (Tsao et al 2003;Wang et al 2013;Rudikovskaya et al 2015). The vitamin C content in cultivated varieties fruit grown in Russia can reach from 5 to 50 mg% (Rudikovskaya et al 2014) and 17 mg/100 g for Indian representatives (Kumari and Dhaliwal 2017). Crab apples are used in the preparation of jellies, jams and beverages (Aladedunye and Matthäus 2014;Kumari and Dhaliwal 2017).…”