Prunus avium L. and biodiversity protection: evaluation of the anthocyanin content in several italian cultivars

This research was developed as part of a project aimed at characterizing the anthocyanin content of several Italian cultivars, mainly of sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) but also to acid cherry (Prunus cerasus L.), to exploit and preserve the bio-diversity of the Italian genotype. Currently, few papers are available on the analysis of cherry fruit anthocyanins [1-5] and no information has been found on these selected P. avium cultivars. Our investigation was developed to reach the following targets: 1) to investigate the anthocyanin content by HPLC/DAD/MS techniques; 2) to perform a quantitative evaluation of these molecules; 3) to compare the anthocyanin pattern both among the cv of the same species and within the two species of acid and sweet cherry; 4) to evaluate the phenolic acids and flavonoids co-present in these fruit samples.