RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ASTRINGENCY PERCEPTIONS AND PHENOLIC COMPOUNDS IN CASHEW APPLES BY CHEMOMETRIC ANALYSIS

The astringency in fruits is a tactile sensation generated by reduction of lubrication in oral cavity normally caused by interaction of phenolic compounds with salivary proteins. This work studied, for the first time, the relation of phenolic compound composition of cashew apples with the sensory perception of astringency and its subqualities harshness in mouth and throat irritation. Nine different genotypes (clones) of cashew trees were evaluated: CCP09, CCP76, CCP1001, BRS189, BRS226, BRS274, BRS275, Embrapa 50, and Embrapa 51. The cashew apples were sensorially analyzed by 8 trained judges in four replicates. The perception intensities were registered in a linear scale of 9 cm. Through a Ultra-high Performance Liquid Chromatography coupled to High Resolution Mass Spectrometry system (HPLC-HRMS), the main phenolic compounds were identified and an exploratory multivariate method by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was developed for the chromatography data evaluation through the PLS Toolbox™ program. A multivariate regression modeling by Partial Least Squares (PLS) was created using the sensory attributes as dependent variables. The PCA method showed a strong correlation of monoene anacardic acid (15:1) followed by cinnamoyl glucoside and the triene anacardic acid (15:3) with the most astringent cashew apples attributed by the judges (BRS274 and EMBRAPA51). On the other hand, the cashew apple BRS189 and CCP76, which were attributed as the lower astringent fruits, presented the lower loadings for the monoene anacardic acid. The multivariate regression model corroborated the positive relationship between the monoene anacardic acid with unpleasant sensations of cashew apple, mainly by the harshness in mouth and astringency. This information is important to better understand the relationship between the phenolic composition and the unpleased sensory attributes of cashew apples and, consequently, contributing to the genetic improvement.