Elsevier

Food Chemistry

Volume 74, Issue 2, August 2001, Pages 209-216
Food Chemistry

Identification of the aroma components of acerola (Malphigia glabra L.): free and bound flavour compounds

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0308-8146(01)00128-5Get rights and content

Abstract

Free and glycosidically-bound flavour compounds of acerola fruit were isolated and identified by GC and GC–MS analysis. Among the 46 compounds identified in the volatile fraction, the alcohols (3-methyl-but-3-en-1-ol, 3-methyl-butan-1-ol and 2-methyl-butan-1-ol) were predominant. Two other classes, aromatic compounds and esters, can participate in the fruity and fresh aroma of acerola. Among the 42 aglycones identified for the first time in this fruit, aliphatic alcohols and norisoprenoids were the main components. The latter were present in free form and only in traces. The hydrolysis of these aglycones could increase the fruity aroma of acerola. Four glucosides and one rutinoside were charaterized by GC–EIMS of their TFA derivatives.

Introduction

The acerola, Malpighia glabra or Malpighia emarginata, is a shrub native to the West Indies. It also grows in Central and South America, Florida, Texas and Vietnam and it forms part of the family of Malpighiaceae. According to the country of origin, the fruit is known under various names, e.g. Acerola, West Indian cherry and Barbados cherry (Gomez, Reynes, Dornier, & Hebert, 1999). It is a small trilobate red fruit and quite similar to a cherry. The pulp is very juicy and cooling and possesses a fruity and sweet flavour but the fruit is principally known for its amount of vitamin C (Gomez et al., 1999, Maciel et al., 1999), varying between 1000 and 4500 mg/100 g of pulp, one of the most important natural sources. Thus, acerola is essentially employed to fortify fruit juice or to produce pharmacological and nutritional products. However, only few recent works have been focussed on this fruit. Herrmann (1981) studied the chemical composition. Chan and Yamamoto (1994) determined the kinetics of anthocyanin decomposition in acerola juice. Caceres, Lopez, Juarez, Del Aguila, and Garcia (1993) evaluated its antifungal activity for the treatment of dermatophytic infections and Ciolino (1998) worked on the compounds responsible for added caramel colour in adulterated acerola juice.

To the best of our knowledge, only one report (Schippa, George, & Fellous, 1993) exists on the volatile aroma compounds. Among the identified compounds, the presence of 3-methyl-but-3-en-1-ol, the major compound, and its esters, some of them identified for the first time, seem to participate in the fruity aroma of the pulp. Possibly another class of compounds, the norisoprenoids (C13), are responsible for part of the fruity aroma of acerola.

The potential aroma, constituted by glycosidically-bound aroma compounds, has been reported in many fruits, including tropical fruits. These compounds can be released during industrial pretreatment or processing of fruits, and generate modifications or a strengthening of the aroma (Kobayashi, Kubota, & Wang, 2000).

The objective of this work was, on the one hand, to identify the free volatile compounds recovered by two extraction methods, solid phase extraction and simultaneous distillation extraction and, on the other hand, to characterize the glycosidically-bound aroma compounds of acerola.

Section snippets

Reagents

The solvents (n-pentane, dichloromethane and methanol) were pure grade (purity >97.7%) from Carlo Erba (Rodano, Italy) and were redistilled before use. Standards of n-Paraffin (C8–C32), purity >95.5%, were purchased from Sigma (St Quentin Fallavier, France). Amberlite XAD-2 (20–60 mesh), obtained from Röhm and Hass (Philadelphia, PA, USA), was treated according to the procedure of Günata, Bayonove, Baumes and Cordonnier (1985). Hemicellulase REG-2 (Gist-Brocades, Seclin, France) and sweet

Free volatile compounds

The volatile fraction was extracted by two methods in order to take into consideration the generation of artefact compounds. The free aroma compounds, separated on two columns of different polarity (DB5-MS and DB-WAX), are listed in Table 1. The total quantities extracted by the two methods, 19 mg/kg of pulp by the solid phase extraction and 33 mg/kg of pulp after SDE, were quite different. Among the 46 compounds identified or tentatively identified, 16 are reported for the first time in this

Conclusions

Among the free aroma components, three classes of compounds were predominant, aliphatic alcohols, esters and aromatic compounds. The glycosidically-bound fraction was composed of aliphatic alcohols, as observed in the volatile fraction, and norisoprenoids. However, after acid hydrolysis of this fraction, it seemed that the glycone moiety could contain unusual glycosides. Their presence can be inferred because only five glycosides have been characterized by TFA glycoside analysis. Therefore,

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the European Union, contract STD ERB-TS3-CT94-0300, and one of the authors (R.B.) received financial support from the Ministère de l’Education Nationale de la Recherche et de la Technologie. The authors are indebted to Pr. P. Winterhalter, Der Technischen Universität Carolo-Wilhelmina, Braunschweig, and Dr. R. Baumes, Institut des Produits de la Vigne, INRA, Montpellier for the gift of reference compounds.

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