Phenolic compounds and antioxidant capacity in fruits of photomorphogenic mutant tomato

Phenolic compounds and antioxidant capacity are defense mechanisms of plants against the oxidative stress damage. Phenolic compounds are synthesized through the phenylpropanoid pathway, where the enzyme phenylalanine-ammonia-lyase plays a key role and it is influenced by light and photoreceptors such as phytochromes. The present research aims to evaluate the phenolic compounds content and antioxidant capacity of the wild "MicroTom" (MT) cultivar tomato fruits and its photomorphogenic mutant tomato plants high pigment 1 (hp1), super responsive to events mediated by light, and aurea (au), quantitative phytochrome deficient. Twenty mature fruits of each genotype ("MT", hp1, au) were used in triplicate for analyses. To quantify the total phenolic compounds the Folin-Ciocalteu method was used and the antioxidant capacity was analyzed by Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) methods. The hp1 mutant presented the highest total phenolic compounds content and higher antioxidant capacity than wild cultivar ("MT") and au mutant, which did not differ significantly from "MT" cultivar.