Chemical diversity of anthocyanin-rich plant materials from Bogota plateau

Anthocyanins are naturally-occurring phenolic compounds that provide color to plants, fruits, vegetables and grains from red to blue. They are of great interest to the food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries due to their colorant and antioxidant properties. However, in Colombia, the chemical diversity on anthocyanins from anthocyanin-containing plant materials has not been correlated. Thus, the present work shows the chemical characterization of some extracts obtained from colored plant materials (such as H. sabdariffa, V. corymbosum, V. meridionale, Z. mays, A. dentata, among others) from Bogota plateau, in order to evaluate the total anthocyanin, flavonoid and phenolic contents (TAC, TFC, and TPC, respectively), and UFLC-DAD-based anthocyanin profiles. In addition, the identification of anthocyanins was performed by UFLC-ESI-MS analyses. All data were correlated through multivariate statistical analysis. Several glycosylation patterns were identified through samples as well as the characteristic substituents for each kind of anthocyanidin. Multivariate analysis indicated that samples containing anthocyanins with similar substitution pattern exhibited close biosynthetic considerations. The results might serve as good starting point for further studies on quality assurance for this type of plant materials based on anthocyanins. The present work is a product derived by the Project IMP-CIAS-1567 financed by Vicerrectoría de Investigaciones at UMNG – Validity 2014.