The acai fruit (Euterpe oleracea) from the palm tree is native to the Amazon forest in Brazil. In addition to being one of the main trees that produce palm hearts, the acai palm also produces a fruit with high nutritional properties and economic value for the food and cosmetic industries. The acai fruit has been described as caloric and rich in proteins, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and sugars....
Carotenoids and anthocyanins are among the main components of the acai fruit [2–4]. Anthocyanins, derived from the Greek words anthos (flower) and kianos (blue), are part of a large group of organic components known as flavonoids that are represented by the basic chemical structure C6-C3-C6 (Figure 1). The phenolic structure of an anthocyanin provides an antioxidant effect due to electron donation or transference of hydrogen atoms....
Mass spectrometry and HPLC identified and quantified the presence of five anthocyanins in the vital dye of the acai fruit: cyanidin-3-O-glucoside, homoorientin, orientin, isovitexin, and taxifolin. Data showed that cyanidin-3-O-glucoside is the major anthocyanin. These findings agreed with those of previous studies that also found that cyanidin-3-O-glucoside was the major anthocyanin found in the acai extracts [12, 13]. Results also showed that independent of the concentration of the acai dye, the anthocyanin concentration was similar (Table 3), and this result is probably because we employed the same prime material.
