Characterization of Major Anthocyanins and the Color of Red-Fleshed Budd Blood Orange (Citrus sinensis)

High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with photodiode array detection was applied for the characterization of anthocyanins in red-fleshed Budd Blood (Citrus sinensis) orange. More than seven anthocyanin pigments were separated within 30 min by using a binary gradient (0.1% H(3)P0(4) in water and 0.1% H(3)PO(4) in acetonitrile) elution on a Prodigy ODS column. Separations by reversed-phase HPLC and semipreparative HPLC on a Prodigy 10-microm ODS Prep column, and acid and alkali hydrolyses were used for identification of anthocyanins. The primary anthocyanins in Budd Blood orange grown in Florida were cyanidin-3-(6"-malonylglucoside) (44.8%) followed by cyanidin-3-glucoside (33.6%). Two other minor pigments were also acylated with malonic acid. Malonated anthocyanins represented the major proportion (>51%) of anthocyanins in Budd Blood orange. Total anthocyanin contents and juice color parameters (CIE L,a,b) were compared with six other Florida-grown blood oranges.