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Interest in berry fruits has intensified worldwide because of the multiple health-promoting phytochemicals present. Anthocyanins represent a major class of phytochemicals present in most colorful berries, and are of interest to nutritionists because of their postulated health benefits, as well as to food processors because of their colorful character and their use as natural colorants. This chapter presents an overview of the role of anthocyanins in the chemoprotective effects of berries. We will review incidence of anthocyanins in berries, their chemistry and concentration, as well as the reported literature regarding in vitro and in vivo chemoprotective studies, structure/chemoprotection relationship, bioavailability, and the interaction of berry anthocyanins with other phytochemicals. The data presented suggests that anthocyanins play a major role in the chemoprotective effects of many berry fruits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The anthocyanin(Anth) content in leaves provides valuable information about the physiologocal status of plant. Thus, there is a need for accurate, efficient, practical methodologies to estimate this biochemical parameter. Hyperspectral measurement is a means of quickly and nondestructively assessing leaf Anth in situ. Wet chemical methods has traditionally been used for this purpose. Recently, NIR(near-infrared)/green, red/green, anthocyanin reflectance index(ARI), and a modified anthocyanin refelctance index(MARI) was been used to estimate the anthocyanin content. In this paper, a an artificial-intelligence technique model was introduced to establish the relationship between the anthocyanin content and reflectance of 400-750nm spectum, variation of species and growth stages. The objective of this study was to test the overall performance and accuracy of this new nondestructive techniques for estimating Anth content in grapevine leaves. Although Anth in validation data set was widely variable, the new methods were capable of accurate predicting Anth content in grapevine leaves with a root mean square error below 1.65 mg/m2, which is lower than that of MARI or ARI [20]. It documents the facts that such an approach is more suitable for developing simple hand-held field instrumentation for accurate nondestructive Anth estimation and for analyzing digital airborne or satellite imagery to assist in making informed decisions vineyard management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]