Seeds recovered from by-products of selected fruit processing as a rich source of tocochromanols: RP-HPLC/FLD and RP-UPLC-ESI/MSn study

Tocochromanol composition was analysed in the seeds of nine various fruits: apple (Malus domestica Borkh.), red currant (Ribes rubrum L.), gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa L.), grape (Vitis vinifera L.), pomegranate (Punica granatum L.), Japanese quince (Chaenomeles japonica (Thunb.) Lindl. ex Spach), sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.), watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. & Nakai) and canary melon (Cucumis melo L.), recovered from by-products of fruit industry. The concentration range of subsequent tocopherols (Ts) and tocotrienols (T3s) was as follows: 1.29-29.30, 0.00-11.68, 0.42-95.11, 0.00-7.66, 0.03-5.03, 0.00-0.18 and 0.00-6.68 mg/100 g of seed dry weight for alpha-T, beta-T, gamma-T, delta-T, alpha-T3, beta-T3 and gamma-T3, respectively. The delta-T3 was not detected in any of the tested seeds. All tocochromanols were successfully separated by rapid RP-HPLC/FLD method and confirmed by the RP-UPLC-ESI/MS3 technique.