Anais do Simpósio Latino Americano de Ciências de Alimentos
Anais do 14 SLACA - Simpósio Latino Americano de Ciência de Alimentos

Jabuticaba (Myrciaria cauliflora) is a native Brazilian tree whose fruit have only recently been researched for their chemical constituents, especially with regards to bioactive compounds in its seeds. There is an ever growing interest and demand in identifying and characterizing functional foods, especially in byproducts of the food industry, such as seeds and peels which often go to waste. As such this work employed paper spray mass spectrometry (PS/MS) on the negative ionization mode, in order to characterize the chemical profile of jaboticaba seeds. Fruits were collected and sanitized, had their pulps removed and were then kept under freezing temperatures in order to preserve the samples until analysis. Samples were ground and a extraction process with methanol was carried out. Chemical profile was determined with the help of an LCQ Fleet Mass Spectrometer coupled with a paper spray ionization source, in the negative ionization mode mode. Sample extracts were placed on chromatography paper, positioned in front of the mass spectrometer’s inlet and the high voltage source was connected for data acquisition. Compounds were tentatively identified by comparing their mass/charge ratios registered by the instrument during analyses and those found in literature. Several compounds of pharmaceutical and food industry relevance and interest were identified, belonging several classes, out of which are of note: malic acid, citric acid, catechin, quercetin, myricetin, isoquercetin, caffeic acid dimerohexoside, caffeic acid, palmitic acid, and gallic acid. Bioflavonoids such as quercetin, catechin, highlight the importance of this research, as these compounds are known to be correlated with increased longevity and decreased incidence of cardiovascular disease. This study presents findings in the process of identifying the health beneficial chemical make-up of jabuticaba seeds, in which PS-MS with methanol extraction proved to be an efficient, safe and fast technique for characterizing the chemical profile of Myrciaria cauliflora seeds.