Comparative study of phenolic profile of fruit and juice samples of a progeny of ‘Meana’ × ‘Florina’ from an Asturian cider apple breeding program

In the present work, a comparative study of the detailed phenolic profile of fruit and juice samples from an Asturian cider apple breeding program was carried out. To achieve this, a fast, selective and sensitive UHPLC-DAD strategy was developed and validated. The proposed method allowed determining 49 polyphenols in apple samples and 41 phenolic compounds in apple juice samples in 18 min. Furthermore, six minor flavonoids have been quantified for the first time in apples: phloretin-hexosyl-hexoside, isorhamnetin-3-O-galactoside, isorhamnetin-3-O-glucoside, isorhamnetin-3-O-arabinopyranoside, isorhamnetin-3-O-arabinofuranoside and isorhamnetin-3-O-rhamnoside. The selectivity and reliability of this methodology allowed us to apply it in a successful manner to select the most interesting descendants from a progeny of ‘Meana’ × ‘Florina’ (a cider and a dessert apple, respectively) in terms of their phenolic composition. Descendants X9701-349, 119, 370, 120 and 069 could be proposed for cider production, since they exhibited a higher phenolic content than ‘Meana’ apple juice. Although flavan-3-ol, procyanidin and dihydrochalcone levels were similar to those observed in ‘Meana’ apple, flavonol levels increased slightly. Furthermore, it is worth noting that hydroxycinnamic acid concentration was up to three times higher. This fact could lead to an increase in cider astringency and color, as well as in cider aroma. Thus, this methodology is proposed to be applicable to the determination of the phenolic profile in other fruit and/or plant extracts.