Background: Rhus pentaphylla (Jacq.) Desf. is an Algerian food and medicinal specie used to treat diarrhea, abdominal colic and employed as digestive [1-3], yet there is little information available concerning their bioactive composition.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to quantify bioactive compounds and to investigate antioxidant and acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activities of extracts obtained from leaves of R. pentaphylla, in order to prove its possible use as potential natural source for human health.

Methods: The bioactive compounds were quantified by colorimetric methods. The phytochemical analysis was carried out by chromatographic techniques. The antioxidant activity was assayed by using several test systems, namely total antioxidant capacity, DPPH, ABTS and OH radicals scavenging activity, ferric reducing power assay, ferrous ion chelating capacity and β-carotene bleaching assay. The acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activity was determined by bioautographic and spectrophotometric methods.

Results: The results showed that the extracts of R. pentaphylla are an excellent source of phenolic compounds especially regarding its high flavonoid and hydrolysable tannin contents (36.26 ± 1.77 mg CE/g DE and 898.64 ± 26.56 mg TAE/g DE, respectively) promoting high antioxidant activity. The phytochemical analysis led to the identification of several phenolic compounds that were dominated by flavonoids and phenolic acids. The extracts showed a potential antioxidant activity by the different tests. This could be attributed to their polyphenol, tannin and flavonoid contents. The extracts of R. pentaphylla also exhibited anti-acetylcholinesterase activity.

Conclusion: Owing to its phenolic profile and biological activities, R. pentaphylla could be considered as potential functional-ingredient for pharmaceutical applications.

In the last years, nutraceuticals prepared with cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) have gained special attention because of their beneficial effects on human health (e.g., antioxidant activity and antimicrobial activity against bacteria involved in a wide range of diseases), which are mainly attributed to the high content of specific polyphenols in cranberry. However, these products present a risk of fraud consisting of the total or partial substitution of cranberry extracts with cheaper and more abundant fruit extracts.

Therefore, in this study, flow injection analysis coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (FIA−HRMS) fingerprinting was proposed as a rapid high-throughput analytical approach to address the classification of berry-based products through chemometrics, focusing on cranberry-based products authentication. Thus, several berry-based natural products (including 18 based on blueberry, 25 on grape, 12 on raspberry, and 28 on cranberry) and 21 cranberry-based nutraceuticals were analysed. Sample treatment consisted of a simple solid-liquid extraction method, using acetone:water:hydrochloric acid (70:29.9:0.1, v/v/v) as the extracting mix. After both negative and positive electrospray ionisation FIA−HRMS sample analysis, raw data were processed with mzMine 2.53 software to obtain the corresponding fingerprints. In this line, four different data matrices —including negative, positive, low-level data fusion (LLDF), and mid-level data fusion (MLDF) FIA−HRMS fingerprints— were then subjected to principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares regression-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) using Solo 8.6 chemometrics software.

PCA results allowed the identification of specific sample groups and trends. Subsequently, the complete sample classification was segregated through a classification decision tree —consecutive two-input class PLS-DA models—, leading to excellent assignment accuracies after external validation according to sample botanical origin (independently of the employed data matrix).

Polyphenols are molecules with strong biological activity, which are the bearers of apple resistance to plant diseases, as well as to abiotic stress from various sources. Moreover, it has been shown that apple cultivars with higher content of polyphenols are more resistant to plant diseases. Some of the biological activities of polyphenols are antiphlogistic, antimutagenic and antioxidant activity. In addition to the above, some polyphenols such as chlorogenic acid, phloridzin and quercetin showed potent antimicrobial and antifungal activities by targeting intracellular processes in microorganisms or inducing irreversible permeability changes in cell membrane. Based on that, this study aimed to detect, quantify, and compare the amounts of chlorogenic acid, phloridzin, and quercetin in ten Croatian traditional and five conventional apple cultivars by high- performance liquid chromatography with diode- array detector. Total phenolic acids, dihydrochalcones and flavonols were also determined. The results showed that Croatian traditional apple cultivars had significantly higher amounts of the investigated compounds compared to conventional apple cultivars. The highest amount of chlorogenic acid (30.29 ± 0.34 mg/100 g DW), phloridzin (3.12 ± 0.01 mg/100 g DW) and quercetin (11.68 ± 0.09 mg/100 g DW) had ‘Božičnica’, ‘Mašanka’ and ‘Petrovnjača’, respectively. The highest contents of the total phenolic acids, dihydrochalcones and flavonols were detected in ‘Božićnica’ (31,94 ± 0.65 mg/100 g DW), ‘Mašanka’ (3,52 ± 0,52 mg/100 g DW) and ‘Fuji’ (19.11 ± 0,56 mg/100 g DW), respectively. The main flavonol detected in ‘Fuji’ was quercetin-3-rutinoside. These results present the beginning of the research on the resistance of Croatian traditional apple cultivars to plant diseases funded by the Croatian Science Foundation (UIP-2020-02-8461).

Cosmos caudatus has been proclaimed as a high source of bioactive compounds such as chlorogenic acid, quercetin and ascorbic acid. Reported evidence indicated that C. caudatus exhibits high antioxidant activities. This study is undertaken to study the effect of extraction time and ethanol concentration on yield and DPPH scavenging activity and to optimize the maceration extraction conditions for C. caudatus. Response surface methodology (RSM) based on central composite design (CCD) was applied to obtain significant variables and the optimum conditions. The independent variables were extraction time (h) and ethanol concentration (%, v/v). The range of the extraction time was between 6 to 24 h and ethanol concentration was 30 to 100% (v/v). The dependent variables were yield (%) and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) scavenging activity (%). Results show that extraction yields ranged between 11% and 25% and DPPH scavenging activity ranged between 29% and 99%. Yield was only influenced by ethanol concentration. However, both extraction time and ethanol concentration significantly affected towards DPPH scavenging activity. Maximum yield and DPPH scavenging activity are the optimal extract qualities. Thus, the optimal conditions were 24 h extraction time and 84% (v/v) ethanol concentration. The experimental values agreed with those expected by RSM models, showing the eligibility of the method used and RSM’s performance in optimizing the conditions of extraction.

Food products are very complex matrices, which makes the quality of these products an issue of great interest in our society. Considering the complexity of the food chain, the adulteration of food is increasing, causing food fraud cases.

In this field, drinks are food products that can be very easily adulterated. This work will focus on the thematic of fraud detection in coffee, one of the most popular beverages in the world. Coffee contains an elevated number of bioactive substances (phenolic acids, polyphenols and alkaloids; being especially abundant ellagic, caffeic and chlorogenic acids) that give place to its important antioxidant activity, known for its beneficial health effects.

The aim of this work was to develop an efficient non-targeted FIA-ESI-MS fingerprinting method in combination with chemometrics to achieve the characterization, classification, and authentication of coffee samples, together with possible adulterants (barley, chicory and flours) using partial least squares regression-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) chemometric method.

Besides, Arabica and Robusta coffee samples were adulterated with barley, chicory and flour and the obtained FIA-ESI-MS data subjected to partial least squares (PLS) regression. Results demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed methodology to assess coffee authenticity and to quantify adulteration levels (down to 15%), showing good calibration and prediction errors.