Comparative Study on Some Physical and Chemical Properties of Three Native Seed Berberis Genotypes from Semnan Province

Extensive researches into native plants as a source of functional food have been conducted over the resent years. Meanwhile, barberry has been utilized as one of the main medicinal plants in Iran and many other countries, from the past decades. Currently, it has been known pharmaceutical active ingredients like berberin have wide application in pharmaceutical industry. The genus of Berberis includes about 450–500 species of deciduous or evergreen shrubs in which four species B.integerrima, B.crataegina, B.vulgaris and B.orthobotrys are found in Iran. Iran is the first largest producer of barberry (B.vulgaris) in the world. Apart from that, other species in different parts of Iran grow in wild conditions. B. Integerrima is a thorny shrub with fragile branches to a height of 1 to 3 meters. Its fruits are small and red with a mild sour taste. There are 1-4 small oblong seeds inside. The changes in this species are important and can produce hybrid with other species. B. Integerrima fruits are consumed fresh or used in the preparation of traditional foods. Barberry fruit, which contains large amount of anthocyanins, can be used as an alternative to synthetic colorants. In addition, aqueous extract of barberry has beneficial effects on both cardiovascular and neural system suggesting a potential use for treatment of hypertension, tachycardia and some neuronal disorders, such as epilepsy and convulsion. The physical properties of barberry genotype are important to design the equipment for sorting, transportation, separation, processing and packaging. Identification of the chemical characteristics of Berberis genotype can lead in using them in the pharmaceutical or food industries. Therefore, in order to introduce these native species, physicochemical characteristics of three wild barberries were evaluated
Three native seed genotypes from Semnan province were manually collected from Research Institute of Food Science and Technology (Mashhad). The harvested fruits were instantly stored inside ice box to minimize damages and transported to the laboratory. Over ripened and damaged fruits were separated. Some physical properties (size, geometric mean diameter, sphericity, area, mass and the weight ratio of seeds to fruit) of fruits were determined using 100 repetitions at the natural moisture content of fruits. Chemical properties of samples were determined as follows: total anthocyanin content by the pH differential, total phenolic content by modified Folin–Ciocalteu method, mineral elements amounts such as Potassium(K), Sodium (Na) and Calcium (Ca) by Flame Photometer and microelements (Fe, Cu, Mg, and Zn) by Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer, Moisture, crude oil, crude protein, ash, reducing sugar, water-soluble extract, pH and acidity were determined according to Indrayan et al,1989 and Iranian National Standard No. 2685. All experiments (except physical properties) were repeated at least three times and results were expressed as mean ± SD. The significant differences between mean values of juice samples were determined by analysis of variance (one way-ANOVA) using Duncan’s test at a significance level of p Results showed that in physical properties such as, fruit length there was statistically difference between genotypes. The number of seeds in the three genotypes varied between 1 and 4 numbers. The weight ratio of seeds to fruit was 11.88%, 10.84% and 10.68 in Noshin, Negarin and Parchin genotypes, respectively. All three genotypes contained high amount of protein, total carbohydrate, fat and ash (3.82-5.255%, 21.68-23.97%, 2.04-2.70% and 0.94-1.27%). Noshin contained the highest reduced sugar (8.03±0.222). So, it is sweeter taste than others. In accordance with result, the amount of anthocyanins (950.17-3927.60mg/L) and total phenol (9.75-12.35gr/L) were higher than these fruits in comparison to the other fruits like mulberry and blueberry that represents the health benefits of these wild plants. All the three genotype emerged as good source of minerals, especially K, Ca, Mg and Zn.