Betalain and phenolic profiles of whole fruit, pulp and peel of 6 Mexican and Spanish prickly pear (Opuntia ficus-indica L. Mill.) cultivars were characterized and quantified using a single extraction and HPLC-DAD-ESI-QTOF protocol. A total of 14 betalains were detected, where betanin and indicaxanthin were the most abundant. The purple cultivars Spanish Morada and Mexican Pelota showed the highest concentration of betacyanins (1,372-2176 μg/g dry whole fruit), whereas the greatest betaxanthin values were obtained in red Spanish Sanguinos and yellow Mexican Diamante cultivars (435–488 μg/g dry whole fruit). The detected 17 phenolics corresponded mostly to flavonoid (isorhamnetin, quercetin and kaempferol) glycosides and a phenolic acid, piscidic acid. The highest phenolic content was found in Spanish Morada cultivar (49,012 μg/g dry peel). The proposed HPLC methodology is a useful tool for the simultaneous and accurate analyses of betalains and phenolic compounds in O. ficus-indica fruit tissues.

This work was supported by Projects RTA2015-00044-C02-02 (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness), P2013/ABI-2728 (Regional Government of Madrid, Spain) and FunFoodEmertec (Tecnológico de Monterrey, México). We thank Dr. Serna-Saldivar from Instituto Tecnologico de Monterrey (Mexico) for the provision of flavonoid standards. Author Andrea Gómez-Maqueo also thanks CONACYT (Mexico) for the scholarship funding for her PhD studies.

Peer reviewed