Bioactive Compounds in small Fruits and their Influence on Human Health

ABSTRACTThe international tendency for growing and production of small fruits shows a permanent increasing. Bulgaria is a traditional important producer of small berries in Europe. A large variety of small fruit products are wide spread and typical for Bulgarian nutriment. Aside with the growing demand in production of small fruit, there is an obvious tendency in food quality, breeding and technology requirements improvement. Breeding purposes comprise improvement of many traits, but selection of disease resistant cultivars, with higher yield and improved consumers properties such as fruit color, shape, smell and transportation ability are among the most important tasks.Recent progress in molecular analyses and agriculture biotechnologies has enormous impact on selection, technology, testing, preservation and processing of agricultural products. Metabolomics assay as a new dimension in these studies and practice focuses the attention on the biochemical contents of cells and tissues, and has a rapidly growing significance in knowledge of small fruits value for human health.Berry fruits are very rich sources of bioactive compounds as phenolics and organic acid. Bioactive berry compounds, their characterization and utilization in functional foods and clinical assessment of antimicrobial properties for human health are among the major targets of contemporary research. Phenolic compounds in berries inhibit the growth of range of human pathogens. Especially raspberry, strawberry, cranberry, crowberries showed evidence of antimicrobial effects against bacterial pathogens as Salmonella and Staphylococcus.The evaluation of small fruit genetic resources for the presence of bioactive compounds and their properties as natural agents is of doubtless significance and will be with great benefit for breeders, food and pharmaceutical industry.