Phenolic compounds in wheat grain cultivars

Three hydroxybenzoic acids: p-hydroxybenzoic acid, vanillic acid and syringic acid; six hydroxycinnamic acids: p-coumaric acid, ferulic acid and four ferulic acid derivatives and a flavonoid (apigenin) were identified and quantified in 34 accessions corresponding to 19 cultivars of wheat applying HPLC coupled to diode array detector. Considerable differences between the wheat cultivars were observed in the phenolic contents. Some cultivars (Colorado, Del País, Barbilla, Jallado, Raspinegro Canario and Plaganudo) could be selected according to the high levels of phenolic compounds. Ferulic acid was the major phenolic acid compound followed by syringic and p-hydroxybenzoic acids. The proportion of ferulic acid present as dimeric forms ranged from 4.2 to 8.6% across all of the wheat cultivars analyzed. Apigenin, p-hydroxybenzoic and syringic acids did not show significant correlations. Many correlations between the determined hydroxycinnamic acids were observed. The ferulic acid and all the ferulic acid derivatives showed highly significant correlations, suggesting that the concentrations of diferulic acids depend on the concentration of ferulic acid.