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. 2019 Dec 23;9(1):22.
doi: 10.3390/plants9010022.

Insight into Composition of Bioactive Phenolic Compounds in Leaves and Flowers of Green and Purple Basil

Bhakti Prinsi  1 , Silvia Morgutti  1 , Noemi Negrini  1 , Franco Faoro  1 , Luca Espen  1
Affiliations

Insight into Composition of Bioactive Phenolic Compounds in Leaves and Flowers of Green and Purple Basil

Bhakti Prinsi et al. Plants (Basel). .

Abstract

Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) is a culinary, medicinal, and ornamental plant appreciated for its antioxidant properties, mainly attributed to high content of rosmarinic acid. This species also includes purple varieties, characterized by the accumulation of anthocyanins in leaves and flowers. In this work, we compared the main morphological characteristics, the antioxidant capacity and the chemical composition in leaves, flowers, and corollas of green ('Italiano Classico') and purple ('Red Rubin' and 'Dark Opal') basil varieties. The LC-ESI-MS/MS analysis of individual compounds allowed quantifying 17 (poly)phenolic acids and 18 flavonoids, differently accumulated in leaves and flowers of the three varieties. The study revealed that in addition to rosmarinic acid, basil contains several members of the salvianolic acid family, only scarcely descripted in this species, as well as, especially in flowers, simple phenolic acids, such as 4-hydroxybenzoic acid and salvianic acid A. Moreover, the study revealed that purple leaves mainly contain highly acylated anthocyanins, while purple flowers accumulate anthocyanins with low degree of decoration. Overall, this study provides new biochemical information about the presence of not yet characterized bioactive compounds in basil that could contribute to boosting the use of this crop and to gaining new knowledge about the roles of these compounds in plant physiology.

Keywords: LC-ESI-MS/MS; green/purple basil; nutraceutical properties; organ chemical differences.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Leaves, inflorescences, and flowers of green and purple basil varieties. Left panel: (a) leaf of ‘Italiano Classico’; (b) leaf of ‘Red Rubin’; (c) leaf of ‘Dark Opal’; (d) part of inflorescence of ‘Italiano Classico’; (e) part of inflorescence of ‘Red Rubin’; (f) part of inflorescence of ‘Dark Opal’. Scale bars in black [(a)–(f)] = 1 cm. Right panel: (g) flower of ‘Italiano Classico’; (h) flower of ‘Red Rubin’; (i) flower of ‘Dark Opal’; anthers are enlarged in (g1), (h1), and (i1), respectively. White bars in [(g)–(i)] = 2 mm; in [(g(1)–(i1)] = 200 µm.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Contents of (poly)phenolic acids in green and purple basil. (a) leaf; (b) flower; (c) corolla. Values are the means ± SE (error bars; n = 3) expressed as µmol g−1 FW. Data are grouped in two scales to visualize differences. Significant differences were assessed by one-way ANOVA test (p ≤ 0.05, Tukey post hoc); (*) significant difference respect to zero assessed by one-Sample t-test (p ≤ 0.05).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Contents of flavonoids in green and purple basil. (a) leaf; (b) flower; (c) corolla. Values are the means ± SE (error bars; n = 3) expressed as µmol g−1 FW. Data are grouped in two scales to visualize differences. Significant differences were assessed by one-way ANOVA test (p ≤ 0.05, Tukey post hoc); (*) significant difference respect to zero assessed by one-Sample t-test (p ≤ 0.05).
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