Ricerc@Sapienza

Neotropical berries from the Andean region are a rich yet undisclosed source of bioactive phenolic compounds. Consumption of berry fruits is not only limited to fresh or frozen forms, as several processed and derived products are prepared. Moreover, in recent years, berry extracts have been increasingly employed as functional foods and dietary supplements combined with other vegetable and herbal extracts. Berries that belong to the genus Vaccinium have been raising interest for their extremely high content in phenolic compounds, which have been demonstrated to exert a wide range of biological activities. Whereas the composition of phenolic compounds in North American and European blueberries has been widely studied, berries from South America have been scarcely investigated, despite a wide consumption among the local population for their biological properties. The aim of the present project is the deep and detailed characterization of the phenolic compound profile of three neotropical berries, i.e. Vaccinium floribundum, vaccinium meridionale, and disterigma alaternoides. For this purpose, specific extraction procedures, as well as data acquisition approaches, will be compared. Moreover, given the extreme structural variability of phenolic compounds, a specific data analysis workflow on Compound Discoverer software will be employed, keeping in mind the peculiar characteristics of blueberries. Moreover, the transformation of phenolic compounds following fermentation (which is a commonly used practice for sour berry consumption) will be evaluated by specific bioinformatics tools.