Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Characterization of pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) genotypes collected in southeastern Italy

6^th Global Summit and Expo on Food & Beverages

August 03-05, 2015 Orlando-FL, USA

Giuseppe Ferrara, Angelica Giancaspro, Andrea Mazzeo, Stefania Lucia Giove, Angela Maria Stella Matarrese, Carmela Pacucci, Rossana Punzi, Antonio Trani, Giuseppe Gambacorta, Antonio Blanco and Agata Gadaleta

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Food Process Technol

Abstract:

The popularity of pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) is very high among consumers due to its organoleptic properties, nutritional values and nutraceutical properties. Pomegranate is characterized by a large variability in terms of domestic, wild and ornamental genotypes and for seed-hardness, juiciness, rind and aril color, sugar/acid ratio, antioxidant activity, fatty acids, phenols and anthocyanin content. Evaluation of pomegranate germplasm has usually been performed using fruit morphological and chemical traits, whereas genetic studies received very little attention. A two-year study was carried out in Puglia region, Southeastern Italy, for the evaluation of 13 pomegranate genotypes, sweet and sour of Italian and Israeli origin in order to evaluate morphological, genetic and bio-chemical traits. Significant differences were observed for many of the parameters investigated, in particular fruit and aril size and maturity index of fruits, titratable acidity, total polyphenol content and antioxidant activity of juices and oil content of seeds. Genetic analysis on the pomegranate collection identified 53 SSR loci able to distinguish the different genotypes and to estimate genetic distances. Pomegranate genotypes clustered according to both geographical origin and morphological-chemical traits (skin color, size, taste and polyphenolic content), suggesting that SSR markers could be effective to detect the genetic diversity of pomegranate, thus facilitating the exploitation of this fruit species germplasm. In general, morphological, chemical and genetic parameters allowed to clearly distinguishing the Italian genotypes from the Israeli ones.