Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Mar 21;10(6):1988-1993.
doi: 10.1002/fsn3.2814. eCollection 2022 Jun.

Bioactive content and phenolic compounds of common medlar (Mespilus germanica L.) and Stern's medlar (M. canescens Phipps)

Zeinab Sadeghinejad  1 , Javad Erfani-Moghadam  1 , Ali Khadivi  2
Affiliations

Bioactive content and phenolic compounds of common medlar (Mespilus germanica L.) and Stern's medlar (M. canescens Phipps)

Zeinab Sadeghinejad et al. Food Sci Nutr. .

Abstract

Medlar (Mespilus) is an important fruit and is rich in nutritional and medical properties. Bioactive content and phenolic compounds of leaf, fruit, and seed samples of common medlar (M. germanica) and Stern's medlar (M. canescens) were studied. The coefficient of variation showed high values among all the characters and was more than 50.00%, ranging from 59.74 to 196.81%. The leaf of M. canescens showed the highest total phenolic content (14.73 mg/g dry weight, DW) and followed by 13.70 mg/g DW in the seed of M. germanica collected from Ilam province, Iran. The highest flavonoid content was observed in fruits of M. germanica collected from the north of Iran (0.90 mg/g DW), and followed by the leaf of M. canescens (0.53 mg/g DW). The phenolic compounds showed strong variation. Principal component analysis showed that four PCs explained 95.07% of the observed total variance. Ward dendrogram indicated two different clusters based on the characters measured, indicating high variation among the accessions. The current investigation clearly showed the potential value of the common medlar (M. germanica) and Stern's medlar (M. canescens) germplasm, as different medlar organs are significant sources of phenolic compounds and high antioxidant activity. Therefore, these species can be considered suitable sources of natural antioxidants, and may show potential future use in food and nutraceutical supplement formulations.

Keywords: breeding; flavonoid content; medlar (Mespilus); phenolic compounds; total phenolic content.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Scatter plot for the studied M. germanica and M. canescens accessions based on PC1/PC2. The symbols represent the organs and areas in the plot, including LN (leaf‐North), LI (leaf‐Ilam), FN (fruit‐North), FI (fruit‐Ilam), SN (seed‐North), and SI (seed‐Ilam)
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Ward cluster analysis of the studied M. germanica and M. canescens accessions based on bioactive content and phenolic compounds using Euclidean distances. The symbols represent the organs and areas in the plot, including LN (leaf‐North), LI (leaf‐Ilam), FN (fruit‐North), FI (fruit‐Ilam), SN (seed‐North), and SI (seed‐Ilam)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Akbulut, M. , Ercisli, S. , Jurikova, T. , Mlcek, J. , & Gozlekci, S. (2016). Phenotypic and bioactive diversity on medlar fruits (Mespilus germanica L.). Erwerbs‐Obstbau, 58, 185–191.
    1. Akcay, M. E. , Ozdemir, Y. , & Dogan, A. (2016). Determination of some characteristics of Akcakoca 77® a new cultured for medlar cultivation. (In Turkish). Bahçe Special Issue, 145, 832–837.
    1. Bibalani, G. H. , & Sayadmahaleh, F. M. (2012). Medicinal benefits and usage of medlar (Mespilus germanica) in Gilan province (Roudsar District), Iran. Journal of Medicinal Plant Research, 6(7), 1155–1159.
    1. Campanella, L. , Bonanni, A. , Favero, G. , & Tomassetti, M. (2003). Determination of antioxidant properties of aromatic herbs, olives and fresh fruit using an enzymatic sensor. Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, 375, 1011–1016. 10.1007/s00216-003-1825-1 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Cevahir, G. , & Zeki‐Bostan, S. (2021). Organic acids, sugars and bioactive compounds of promising medlar (Mespilus germanica L.) genotypes selected from Turkey. International Journal of Fruit Science, 21, 312–322.

LinkOut - more resources