Sviluppo e applicazione di metodi cromatografici per la determinazione quali-quantitativa di costituenti minoritari di prodotti d'alveare

All the products originating in the beehive are attractive ingredients for functional foods. Honey has been used since ancient times as part of traditional medicine although nowadays it is mainly used as a sweetener. The actual composition of honeys varies depending on many factors such as the pollen source, climate, environmental conditions and processing. Royal jelly is the exclusive food of queen honey bee. The chief components of royal jelly are water, proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, mineral salts and vitamins, whereas a large number of bioactive substances characterizes the minority composition. For these reasons royal jelly is commonly used like a dietary supplement. In the first part of this thesis, the typical profile of the free amino acids contained in strawberry-tree (Arbutus unedo L.) honey is reported. An optimized reversed-phase liquid chromatographic method with phenyl isothiocyanate precolumn derivatization was used. In the second part, a direct RP-HPLC method for the determination of furanic aldehydes and acids in honey is presented. Hypotheses relating to the formation of minority furanic compounds are also proposed. Finally, the assessment and validation of two chromatographic methods for the determination of water-soluble vitamins in honey and royal jelly is proposed. All the analytical methods were fully validated in terms of detection and quantification limits, precision, linearity and bias. They are all characterized by excellent analytical performances.