An-Najah Staff

Rhus coriaria L. (Sumac) is widely used in the Mediterranean area as well as in other parts of the world as a food spice for its sour taste, and also in folk medicine due to its health- promoting properties. Phytochemicals, mainly, phenolics present in the plant may be -in part- responsible for these consequent health benefits. Nevertheless, detailed information on these individual bioactive compounds is still scarce. Therefore, the aim of the present work was to extensively investigate the phytochemical components of Rhus coriaria fruit pericarp by using RP-HPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS. In this sense, aqueous-methanol solvent was used to extract about 0.5 gram of the shade dried Sumac fruit pricarp. The supernatant was collected and thoroughly evaporated in vacuo, and finally analyzed by using an RP-HPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS in negative and positive ionization modes using a C18 column, acetonitrile and acidified water and as mobile phases at 0.8 mL/min flow rate for a total time of 60 min. The used method has shown to be a powerful tool for the tentative identification of 230 phenolic and other phyto-constituents; most of them have not been described so far in Rhus coriaria fruits. To the best of our knowledge, more than 150 phytochemical compounds (Tannins, phenolic acids, (iso)flavonoids, etc.) and their isomers have been tentatively identified in Sumac fruits pericarp for the first time in this study. The obtained results highlight the importance of this spice as a promising source of functional ingredients.