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 and electrospray
ionisation-mass spectrometry. 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 *5% 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
DPPHradical dot, ABTSradical dot+ 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.Â
