Potato is included among the main horticultural crops in Brazil. Due to its broad availability and nutritional characteristics, it has been considered one of the most important components in the human diet. Nevertheless, members of the family Solanaceae produce potentially toxic compounds known as glycoalkaloids during growth and post-harvest, amongst which alpha-solanine and alpha-chaconine predominate. The recommended safety level for these compounds in unprocessed potato tubers for human consumption, expressed as total glycoalkaloids, is 200mg·kg-1. In this study, samples of potato tubers of different commercial varieties collected in the city of Campinas, State of São Paulo, were extracted and analysed for their total glycoalkaloid (TGA) content using a C18 HPLC column with a photodiode array detector. The mean recoveries of alpha-solanine and alpha-chaconine were 102.6% and 100.2%, respectively. The limit of quantitation was 2.5µg·mL-1 for alpha-solanine and 1.4µg·mL-1 for alpha-chaconine. The levels of TGA in individual samples of whole tubers of different varieties and type (Bintje, Monaliza, Asterix and Bolinha), ranged from 22.4 to 246.9 mg·kg-1. In 82% of the samples the levels of TGA were below 100mg·kg-1, which indicates that the studied potatoes were safe for human consumption.
glycoalkaloid; alpha-solanine; alpha-chaconine; HPLC
