Abstract
Edible honeysuckle (honeyberry) <em>Lonicera caerulea</em> is becoming popular as a novel berry crop with several useful features such as early fruit ripening and exceptional hardiness, particularly resistance to pests and diseases as well as severe frosts in winter and droughts in summer. The triterpenoid profile of fruit and leaf cuticular waxes of edible honeysuckle (a Russian cultivar Chernichka) was analyzed by GC-MS. The major compounds identified were the tetracyclic triterpenoids campesterol, cholesterol, cycloartanol, cycloart-23-ene-3,25-diol, 24-methylenecycloartanol (only in leaves), sitosterol, stigmasta-3,5-dien-7-one, and stigmasterol; and the pentacyclic triterpenes: <em>α</em>-amyrin, <em>β</em>-amyrin, hop-22(29)-en-3-one, oleanolic acid, and ursolic acid. Several remarkable features of the analyzed triterpenoid contents were revealed, including the relatively low abundance of triterpenoids in fruit waxes (6.5% of wax extract) compared to leaf waxes (22%), and a particularly high proportion of tetracyclic triterpenoids (tetracyclic to pentacyclic compound ratios of 4:1 in fruits and almost 7:1 in leaves). These rare features distinguish the triterpenoid profile of the cuticular waxes of <em>L. caerulea</em> var. <em>kamtschatica</em> from the majority of triterpenoid profiles in plant cuticular waxes investigated to date. To our knowledge, this is the first quantitative compositional study on triterpenoid compounds in the cuticular waxes of edible honeysuckle, supplementing the knowledge of cuticular triterpenoid diversity and distribution.
Highlights
The genus Lonicera (Caprifoliaceae) consists of approximately 200 species of vines and shrubs distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, mostly in temperate regions
Up to 17 species of edible honeysuckle belonging to the Caerulea Red. section have been recognized including the most popular ones: Lonicera caerulea var. edulis, L. c. var. kamtschatica, and L. c. var. altaica [6,7]
The peaks identified as being associated with triterpenoid compounds are numbered from the shortest to the longest retention time (Tab. 1)
Summary
The genus Lonicera (Caprifoliaceae) consists of approximately 200 species of vines and shrubs distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, mostly in temperate regions. A number of these plants are well known as ornamental shrubs prized for their sweet scented flowers, some (e.g., Japanese honeysuckle) are important traditional medicines [1], while others, that bear edible fruits, are becoming popular as novel berry crops with several useful features such as early fruit ripening and exceptional hardiness [2,3,4,5]. Up to 17 species of edible honeysuckle belonging to the Caerulea Red. section have been recognized including the most popular ones: Lonicera caerulea var. Edible honeysuckle ( known as blue honeysuckle, sweet berry honeysuckle, honeyberry, haskap, haskappu) is one of the most hardy fruiting plants, being resistant to pests and diseases as well as severe droughts in summer and temperatures below −40°C in winter [6,8]. The expanded flowers have proven resistant to injury even when exposed to a temperature of −8°C [4,7]
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