Research Article |
Corresponding author: Anna Gavrilova ( any_gavrilova@abv.bg ) Academic editor: Plamen Peikov
© 2023 Trifon Angelov, Anna Gavrilova, Nikolay Panayotov, Galina Dyakova, Alexandar Pashev, Genadi Gavrilov, Maya Yotova.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Angelov T, Gavrilova A, Panayotov N, Dyakova G, Pashev A, Gavrilov G, Yotova M (2023) Capsaicinoids content in some Bulgarian varieties of Capsicum annuum L. obtained by RP-HPLC. Pharmacia 70(3): 771-777. https://doi.org/10.3897/pharmacia.70.e109767
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Capsaicinoids are amides, a type of secondary metabolites in hot peppers, responsible for their hot taste also known as pungency. They possess many pharmacological properties with great potential for pharmacy like analgesic, blood glucose level reduction, insulin level improvement, reduction of triglycerides and cholesterol levels, etc. For the needs of this study a reliable and easy applicable RP-HPLC method with UV detection for determination of capsaicinoids was developed. Two traditional and two newly selected Bulgarian hot pepper varieties were studied. The concentrations of capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin in the pericarp and the seeds were determined respectively. According to the Scoville heat unit (SHU) equivalence of the pericarps, the varieties Dzhulyunska shipka 1021, Zlatna shipka and Kehlibar show moderate pungency and present a potential value for the pharmaceutical and food industries. The current study contributes to the scientific database with regard to the pungency of Capsicum annuum L. varieties.
capsaicine, dihydrocapsaicine, HPLC determination, Capsicum annuum
Chili peppers are world famous for their distinctive aroma, color and spiciness. They belong to the genus Capsicum, which comprises of some 30 species and more than 200 varieties. However, only five species are domesticated and these are Capsicum annuum L., C. baccatum L., C. chinense Jacq., C. frutescens L. and C. pubescens Ruiz &Pav. So far C. annuum appears to be the most economically valuable species with the largest distribution and demand worldwide (
The aim of the presented study is to investigate the pungency levels of four Bulgarian Capsicum annuum L. varieties as a preliminary step in the direction of their potential utilisation for the needs of the pharmaceutical or food industries.
The experiments were carried out with four Bulgarian varieties of Capsicum annuum L.: Dzhulyunska shipka 1021, Zlatna shipka, Osmarsko kambe and Kehlibar. Dzhulyunska shipka 1021 and Osmarsko kambe are well known and traditional for Bulgaria, while Zlatna shipka and Kehlibar are newly selected at Agricultural University-Plovdiv. The plants were grown in the Experimental field at the Agricultural University-Plovdiv by conventional and traditional for middle early field production technology. All necessary agricultural practices were applied according to the technology and plant development. At the stage of full botanical maturity, randomly from different plants of each variety were harvested a total amount of 500 g fruits. In this phenological phase the fruits of three of the varieties were red, whereas those of Kehlibar were orange in colour. The whole fruits were air dried under shade at room temperature and the pericarps with the attached placenta were separated from the seeds afterwards.
The analytical method described below is based on the method used by
Gradient grade methanol and acetonitrile were obtained from Honeywell. Glacial acetic acid was purchased from Merck. Capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin primary standards were obtained from Merck, Sigma-Aldrich.
About 0.5 g minced dried fruits were sieved through test sieve with 500 μm mesh size and then transferred into 20 ml screw tube. The content of the tube was diluted with 20 ml methanol and then sonicated in ultrasonic bath at 75 °C for 15 min. The resulting extract was cooled to room temperature and filtered through 0.45 µm syringe filter before injecting 20 µl in to the HPLC system.
All analyses were performed on an HPLC Thermo Scientific Ultimate 3000 equipped with Chromeleon software for data acquisition, analysis and reporting.
1% acetic acid was filtered through membrane filter with 0.45 μm pore size.
20.0 mg capsaicin and 20 mg dihydrocapsaicin primary standards were dissolved in methanol into a volumetric flask of 50.0 ml. Then 1.0 ml of the solution was diluted with methanol to the full volume of 20.0 ml volumetric flask (C Capsaicin = 0.020 mg/ml, C Dihydrocapsaicin = 0.020 mg/ml).
The chromatographic separation was conducted using isocratic elution at ambient temperature (25 °C) on Zodiac C18 column (100 mm × 4,6 mm, 3 μm) with UV detection at 280 nm. The mobile phase was 1% acetic acid and acetonitrile at the ratio of 50:50 (v/v). The flow rate was set at 1.0 ml/min. The injection volume was 20 µl. The chromatography time was set at 10 min. The retention times of Capsaicin and Dihydrocapsaicin were about 5,5 min and 8,1 min respectively.
The pungency in Scoville heat units was calculated by multiplying the capsaicinoid concentrations in ppm units (1 ppm=1 μg/g dry weight) with the pungency coefficient of the pure compounds as given by
The presented method was here originally developed and was validated according to the following parameters: selectivity, linearity, repeatability, recovery and limit of quantitation (LOQ).
The linearity of the method for the assay of capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin in hot peppers dried fruits is set from 1.30 µg/ml for C and 1.55 µg/ml for DHC to 52 µg/ml and 62 µg/ml respectively. The calculated correlation coefficient is very close to the ideal value 1. The excellent correlation expressed as R2 is 0.9998 for C and 0.9999 for DHC (Fig.
The repeatability was calculated at concentrations 2.4 µg/ml for capsaicin and 2.9 µg/ml for dihydrocapsaicin (Table
№ of injection | Area (mAU) Capsaicin | Area (mAU) Dihydrocapsaicin |
---|---|---|
1. | 0,5856 | 0,7012 |
2. | 0,5872 | 0,6926 |
3. | 0,5834 | 0,6793 |
4. | 0,5794 | 0,6919 |
5. | 0,5973 | 0,6966 |
6. | 0,5992 | 0,7022 |
SD* | 0,0079 | 0,0083 |
Average | 0,5887 | 0,6940 |
RSD%** | 1.3419 | 1.1960 |
1,3419 | 1,1960 |
The recovery of the extraction procedure was proven by analysis of double extracted samples.
At the first extraction step more than 99% of the capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin content was found in the investigated samples. The results of capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin from the second extraction step were several times lower than LOQ so accurate results could not be calculated (Fig.
The limit of quantitation is the lowest point where the concentration of the investigated compounds (capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin) can be determined with relative standard deviation less than 3 per cent (Fig.
№ of injection | Area (mAU) Capsaicin 1.30 µg/ml | Area (mAU) Dihydrocapsaicin 1.55 µg/ml |
---|---|---|
1. | 0,3161 | 0,3760 |
2. | 0,3352 | 0,3863 |
3. | 0,3125 | 0,3587 |
4. | 0,3204 | 0,3698 |
5. | 0,3306 | 0,3785 |
6. | 0,3214 | 0,3789 |
SD* | 0,0086 | 0,0095 |
Average | 0,3227 | 0,3747 |
RSD%** | 2,6650 | 2,5354 |
The separation coefficient between the two measured capsaicinoids was conducted via isocratic elution. Its value, which was more than 5, showed excellent baseline separation, which other authors had also observed (
The separate concentrations of C and DHC in the fruit and seeds of the four hot pepper varieties under investigation are given in Table
Capsaicin (C) and dihydrocapsaicin (DHC) concentrations in the fruit and seeds of four varieties of Capsicum annuum L. and SHU for the fruits.
Sort | C(%) | DHC(%) | C+DHC total amount (%) | C+DHC total amount (SHU) | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fruit | Seed | Fruit | Seed | Fruit | Seed | Fruit | |
Dzhulyunska shipka 1021 | 0.0420 | 0.0034 | 0.0430 | 0.0036 | 0.0850 | 0.0070 | 13685 (moderately pungent) |
Zlatna shipka | 0.0120 | 0.0013 | 0.0080 | 0.0010 | 0.0200 | 0.0023 | 3220 (moderately pungent) |
Osmarsko kambe | 0.0025 | 0.0005 | 0.0018 | 0.0006 | 0.0043 | 0.0011 | 692.3 (mildly pungent) |
Kehlibar | 0.0179 | 0.0065 | 0.0103 | 0.0033 | 0.0282 | 0.0098 | 4540.2 (moderately pungent) |
Based on the results presented in Table
Capsaicin (C) and dihydrocapsaicin (DHC) content of hot pepper varieties with different origin.
Origin | Species | Variety | C | DHC | C:DHC ratio | Extraction method* | Source |
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mg g−1 dry weight | mg g−1 dry weight | ||||||
Bulgaria | C. annuum | Dzhulyunska shipka 1021 | 0.420 | 0.430 | 1:1.02 | UAE | original data |
C. annuum | Zlatna shipka | 0.120 | 0.080 | 1:0.67 | |||
C. annuum | Osmarskokambe | 0.025 | 0.018 | 1:0.72 | |||
C. annuum | Kehlibar | 0.179 | 0.103 | 1:0.58 | |||
Mexico | C. annuum | Ancho cv. Don Matias | 0.290 | 0.770 | 1:2.66 | UAE |
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C. annuum | De árbol | 5.220 | 6.250 | 1:1.20 | |||
C. annuum | Chiltepín | 15.360 | 13.390 | 1:0.87 | |||
C. annuum | Guajillo cv. San Luis | 0.170 | 0.610 | 1:3.59 | |||
C. annuum | Jalapeño cv. Don Julio | 8.030 | 9.390 | 1:1.17 | |||
C. annuum | Puya | 1.180 | 2.320 | 1:1.97 | |||
C. annuum | Serrano cv. Don Diego | 1.520 | 3.540 | 1:2.33 | |||
Czech Republic | C. chinense | Trinidad Scorpion Moruga | 42.880 | 18.090 | 1:0.42 | SOX |
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C. annuum | Yellow Bedder | 2.490 | 2.530 | 1:1.02 | |||
C. annuum | Ring of Fire | 1.740 | 1.730 | 1:0.99 | |||
C. chinense | Jamaican Hot Red | 2.080 | 1.170 | 1:0.56 | |||
C. frutescens | Tabasco | 3.190 | 2.500 | 1:0.78 | |||
C. annuum | Chiltepin | 0.285 | 0.220 | 1:0.77 | |||
C. chinense | Yellow Habanero | 0.540 | 0.413 | 1:0.76 | |||
C. chinense | Yellow Habanero | 0.739 | 0.506 | 1:0.68 | PHWE |
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Turkey | C. annuum | 730 F1 | 0.308 | 0.208 | 1:0.68 | heat |
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C. annuum | 1245 F1 | 0.271 | 0.123 | 1:0.46 | |||
C. annuum | Amazon F1 | 0.016 | 0.000 | 1:0.01 | |||
C. annuum | Serademre 8 | 0.149 | 0.073 | 1:0.49 | |||
C. annuum | Kusak 295 F1 | 0.011 | 0.002 | 1:0.15 |
In regard to the chili peppers processing, most often the seeds are removed prior to this process. Therefore here is given the SHU equivalent only for fruit without seeds (Table
The studied in this work varieties were chosen in order to be compared two new hot pepper varieties selected in Agricultural University – Plovdiv (Bulgaria) to two traditional and well-known Bulgarian varieties in regard to their pungency. Many authors have asserted that capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin equal together around 80–90% of the total capsaicinoid content in different hot varieties (
Bearing in mind that the capsaicinoids content in hot peppers is a genetically controlled trait strongly influenced by the environment and the fruit developmental stage (
According to Table
The current study contributed to the expanding of the scientific database in regard to Capsicum annuum pungency through special attention on two traditional and two newly selected Bulgarian hot pepper varieties. The varieties Dzhulyunska shipka 1021, Zlatna shipka and Kehlibar possess moderate level of pungency based on their capsaicinoid content and could be of potential value for the pharmaceutical and food industries.
The financial support of Medical University – Pleven, Bulgaria (Project №11/2022) is greatly acknowledged. We are very thankful to Andrey Andreev and Rayna Kuzmanova for their technical assistance.