Solanidine Acetate: The Modified Glycoalkaloid Imparting Toxicity in Green Coloured and Sprouted Potatoes

Abstract

Saranya CV, Anoop Madhavankutty and Jayachandran K

Glycoalkaloids are one of the major secondary metabolites present in potatoes and also in the entire solanaceae family. Being toxic, the main function of this compound in plants is in the mechanism of disease resistance and they also act as feeding deterrents. The glycol alkaloid content was reported to be very high in the sprouted and green coloured potatoes. The glycol alkaloids extracted from the peel of potatoes during various post harvesting stages was subjected to TLC and FT/IR analysis.LC-MS showed the presence of the glycoalkaloid, α-chaconine in the purified samples of normal, sprouted and green coloured potatoes. The molecular weight of α-chaconine is 852.053kDa as represented in the MS. The specific mass fractions were also present in the spectrum. A slight change was observed in the MS of the extract from normal potato and the green coloured and sprouted potato. The mass fraction corresponding to the solanidineaglycone moiety in the normal potato was absent in both green coloured and sprouted potato instead of which there was a new mass representation of 437.71kDa indicating the presence of solanidine acetate as the modified aglycone moiety. Acetyl derivatives of glycol alkaloids generally increase toxicity and hence one of the reasons behind the increased toxicity of green coloured and sprouted potatoes might be due to the presence of this aglycone acetyl derivative.

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