Anthocyanins in cereals

The anthocyanic composition of some pigmented cereals is still not well established, neither in relation to some of their components, nor from the quantitative point of view. Nonetheless, the use of analytical techniques, such as diode array spectroscopy and mass spectrometry (MS, PDMS, MALDI) coupled or not to liquid chromatography, are permitting, in recent years, the confirmation of the structure of some of the principal anthocyanins and a knowledge of those which are present in minor proportion. In this article, firstly, a review of the principal methods of analysis of anthocyanins is made. This is followed by a review of the most significant advances achieved in the last years in the field of the identification and quantification of these pigments in cereals and the present uses of the commercial extracts of anthocyanins obtained from these sources and the perspectives for their use is included. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.