Anthocyanins composition and antioxidant activity of wild Lycium ruthenicum Murr. from Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Lycium ruthenicum Murr. is a nutritional food, and has widely been used for treatment of heart disease, abnormal menstruation and menopause among folks. In present study, the anthocyanins composition and content of L. ruthenicum from three different area of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have been investigated by high-performance liquid chromatography with diode array detector (HPLC–DAD) and HPLC–electrospray ionisation-mass spectrometry (HPLC–ESI-MS). Totally, fourteen anthocyanins have been detected, ten of which were identified and quantified. All of them were first reported in L. ruthenicum. Results showed that petunidin derivatives accounted for 95% of the total anthocyanins in fresh fruit. Furthermore, most of the anthocyanins were acylated by coumaric acid, and the rare anthocyanins that naturally presented a coumaric acid in both cis and trans configurations have been detected in our study. For antioxidant activity, their methanol extracts showed potent antioxidant activity in terms of DPPH, ABTS+ and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assays. The results are valuable for elucidating anthocyanins composition of L. ruthenicum fruits and for further utilising them as healthy food and natural pigment resource.