Cape gooseberry (Physalis peruviana L.) as a functional food: Phytometabolite profiling in fruit pomace

Physalis peruviana L. commonly known as golden berry, is grown in North India and is thus, underutilised in view of its immense medicinal and nutraceutical value. Samples of cape gooseberry pomace, extracted from whole fruit were subjected to Fourier Transform Infra Red spectroscopy (FT-IR), where major functional group viz. alkanes, aromatics, phenols, aliphatics, nitro compounds, amines and aliphatic iodo compounds, etc. Phytometabolites corresponding to the wavelength of alcohol and phenol at 3728.7 to 3574.5 cm⁻¹, alcohol and carboxylic acid at 3462.5 to 3009.3 cm-¹, aldehydes at 2926.3 to 2858.3 cm⁻¹, esters, saturated aliphatic and ketone at 1745.2 to 1709.2 cm⁻¹, alkanes and primary, secondary aromatics amines to 1654.6 to 1160.0 cm⁻¹, alkyl halide at 1093.3 to 1072.6 cm⁻¹, carboxylic acids at 956.0 to 595.1 cm⁻¹, aromatics, alkyl halides, aliphatic iodo compound corresponding to delta-tocopherol and stigmasterol were identified in the fruit pomace samples. Physalis peruviana is reported to be a rich source of withanolides and thus, further detailed analysis of the pomace is required to understand the nutraceutical potential.