Abstract
Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) is a culinary, medicinal, and ornamental plant appreciated for its antioxidant properties, mainly attributed to high content of rosmarinic acid. This species also includes purple varieties, characterized by the accumulation of anthocyanins in leaves and flowers. In this work, we compared the main morphological characteristics, the antioxidant capacity and the chemical composition in leaves, flowers, and corollas of green (‘Italiano Classico’) and purple (‘Red Rubin’ and ‘Dark Opal’) basil varieties. The LC-ESI-MS/MS analysis of individual compounds allowed quantifying 17 (poly)phenolic acids and 18 flavonoids, differently accumulated in leaves and flowers of the three varieties. The study revealed that in addition to rosmarinic acid, basil contains several members of the salvianolic acid family, only scarcely descripted in this species, as well as, especially in flowers, simple phenolic acids, such as 4-hydroxybenzoic acid and salvianic acid A. Moreover, the study revealed that purple leaves mainly contain highly acylated anthocyanins, while purple flowers accumulate anthocyanins with low degree of decoration. Overall, this study provides new biochemical information about the presence of not yet characterized bioactive compounds in basil that could contribute to boosting the use of this crop and to gaining new knowledge about the roles of these compounds in plant physiology.
Highlights
Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) is an herbaceous plant, of the Lamiaceae family, traditionally cultivated worldwide and highly appreciated for its many properties
The fully expanded leaves had similar sizes (Figure 1), but they significantly differed in fresh weight, with a value of 0.53 ± 0.05 g in Italiano Classico’ (IC) and values lower by 28% and 34% in RR and DO, respectively (p = 0.036 and p = 0.009, respectively, Table 1)
This difference is in agreement with what reported for plants grown in the field in North America [1], even if in our climate zone, in greenhouse conditions, all the three varieties started flowering earlier
Summary
Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) is an herbaceous plant, of the Lamiaceae family, traditionally cultivated worldwide and highly appreciated for its many properties This species, which gives the common name to its whole genus, includes a large number of varieties with distinct morphological traits, chemical composition, and agro-industrial uses [1,2]. Mainly conducted on green varieties, showed that alcoholic and aqueous extracts from aerial parts of basil possess hypoglycemic, hepatoprotective, cardioprotective, and antimycobacterial activities, related to their antioxidant properties [5]. These properties are in part attributed to high contents of phenolic compounds, such as (poly)phenolic acids and flavonoids, Plants 2020, 9, 22; doi:10.3390/plants9010022 www.mdpi.com/journal/plants
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