Saponin Profile of Wild Asparagus Species

Abstract

The aim of this work was to study the saponin profiles from spears of different wild asparagus species inthe context of its genetic diversity aside from geographical seed origin. They includedAsparagus pseudoscaberGrecescu,Asparagus maritimus(L.) Mill.,Asparagus brachiphyllusTurcz.,Asparagus prostratesDumort., andAsparagus officinalisL. Thesaponin analysis by LC-MS has shown that saponin profile from wild asparagus is similar to that previously describedfortrigueroasparagus from Hu ́etor-T ́ajar landrace (trigueroHT), which had not ever been reported in the edible part ofasparagus. All the samples, exceptA.officinalis, were characterized for having saponins distinct to protodioscin and the totalsaponin contents were 10-fold higher than those described for commercial hybrids of green asparagus. In particular,A.maritimusfrom different origins were rich in saponins previously found intrigueroHT. These findings supported previoussuggestion, based on genetic analysis, aboutA.maritimusbeing the origin oftrigueroHT. Multivariate statistics includingprincipal component analysis and hierarchical clustering analysis were used to define both similarities and differencesamong samples. The results showed that the greatest variance of the tested wild asparagus could be attributed to differencesin the concentration of particular saponins and this knowledge could be a tool for identifying similar species.