High Triterpenic Acids Production in Callus Cultures from Fruit Pulp of Two Apple Varieties

Introduction – Very rarely fruit pulp has been used in in vitro culture to produce secondary metabolites useful in promotinghealth.Objectives – The aims of this work were the study of the best conditions to obtain the callus cultures from the pulp of twovarieties of apples, Golden Delicious (GD) and “Mela Rosa Marchigiana” (MRM), and the quali-quantitative analysis of secondarymetabolites produced by the two in vitro callus cultures.Methodology – Callus was induced on both Murashige and Skoog and Gamborg B5 media containing various combinations ofsupplements. To achieve the maximum recovery of secondary metabolites produced, preliminary extraction tests were carriedout on GD apple culture using two different organic solvents (MeOH and EtOAc). The quali-quantitative analysis of the methano-lic extract of both cultures was carried out by ESI-MSnand GC–MS techniques.Results – The GC–MS analysis revealed the presence of triterpenic acids, in particular, oleanolic, ursolic, maslinic, pomolic,tormentic, corosolic and annurcoic acid along with a phytosterol, β -sitosterol. In addition, GD callus culture produced phloridzin,absent in the MRM culture. In this last culture, however, the total amount of secondary metabolites was markedly higher. Thein vivo production of these bioactive compounds were also quantified in the GD and MRM apple pulps.Conclusion – Apple pulps produced higher amounts of triterpenic acids in vitro than in vivo. The present work can be considered amethod to amplify the production of important secondary metabolites which exert beneficial effects on human health. Copyright© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.