The mango (Mangifera indica L.) is native to South
and Southeast Asia. Among the tropical and subtropical
fruits, it is one of the most important in terms of
production, acreage, and popularity. The principal
producing country is India, but Brazil is among the
other major producing countries (Wu et al., 1993).
The yellow-orange characteristic color of mango is due
to the presence of carotenoids. Jungalwala and Cama
(1963) found 16 carotenoids in the mango cultivar
Alphonso from India. John et al. (1970) followed the
carotenoid distribution during ripening of mango cv.
Badami (also from India), detecting 15, 14, and 17
carotenoids at mature-green, partially ripe, and fully
ripe stages, respectively. Godoy and Rodriguez-Amaya
(1989) quantified eight carotenoids in five mango cultivars
grown in Brazil. In the first two studies, 1 kg
samples were analyzed, saponification was performed
under rather drastic conditions, repetitive column chromatography
was used to separate the carotenoids, and
the relative percentages were presented. In the third
work, much smaller samples were used, saponification
conditions were milder, only one column chromatography
step was employed, and the concentrations in
micrograms per gram were reported. However, the
epoxy carotenoids had to be separated by thin-layer
chromatography (TLC) on silica. Recently, Cano and
Ancos (1994) reported the separation of a series of esters
and cis-trans isomeric carotenoids in mango cv. Alphonso
by high-performance liquid chromatography
(HPLC). The major carotenoids were reported as antheraxanthin
and â-carotene. Surprisingly, on saponification,
antheraxanthin disappeared completely and
luteoxanthin, which was in minute amount in the
original extract, became the principal carotenoid. No
quantitative data were presented. Although natural
variation among mango samples is expected because of
cultivar differences, climatic effects, stage of maturity
at harvest, and time after harvest, some of the discrepancies
in reported results are apparently due to the
analytical procedures.
Conclusive identification of the carotenoids and demonstration
that they occur naturally and are not artifacts
are needed, especially for the epoxycarotenoids, as
well as determination of the quantitative composition.
HPLC and mass spectrometry (MS) were used for this
purpose in the present paper.