Identification, Quantification, and Method Validation of Anthocyanins

Nowadays, anthocyanins have gained scientific and industrial attention due to their biological activities and coloring properties. In this regard, anthocyanins have been proposed for use in the development of new nutraceutical foods to replace synthetic additives as well as to be value-added ingredients. The aim of this study was to evaluate current data on identification and quantification techniques and the validation process of such methods. Our results showed that anthocyanins have been identified by different methods, including nuclear magnetic resonance and chromatography-based techniques. Although problems have been described in this validation, most of the reports showed positive results on the validation parameters, suggesting that the current analytical technology offers a satisfactory identification and quantification of anthocyanins.