Quantification of Antioxidant Phenolic Compounds in a New Chrysanthemum Cultivar by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Diode Array Detection and Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

The flowers of <i>Chrysanthemum morifolium</i> Ramat. have been used as an herbal tea and in traditional medicine, and the plant has been developed to produce horticultural cultivars of various colors and shapes. In this study, a new chrysanthemum cultivar with dark purple petals (<i>C. morifolium</i> cv. ARTI-Dark Chocolate; ADC) was developed by radiation-induced mutation breeding of its original cultivar with purple striped white petals (<i>C. morifolium</i> cv. Noble Wine, NW). The phenolic profile and antioxidant property of ADC were investigated and compared with NW and the commercially available medicinal herb, <i>C. morifolium</i> with yellow petals (CM), in order to find a scientific support to produce a new source of natural antioxidant. Flavonoid and phenolic acid profiles of the ethanol extracts of the three flowers were analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HPLC-DAD-ESIMS), while antioxidant properties were evaluated using the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,2-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS) radical scavenging assay. Among the tested flowers, ADC possessed the strongest antioxidant capacity and the highest phenolic contents. Flavonoids (acacetin, apigenin, luteolin, acacetin-7-<i>O</i>-<i>β</i>-glucoside, apigenin-7-<i>O</i>-<i>β</i>-glucoside, luteolin-7-<i>O</i>-<i>β</i>-glucoside, and linarin) and phenolic acids (chlorogenic acid and mixture of 1,4-, 1,5-, and 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic acids) were identified and quantified.