Dioscorea batatas Decne (Chinese yam) has been widely cultivated in East Asia for the purposes of food and medicinal uses for centuries. Along with its high nutritional value, the medicinal value of D. batatas has been extensively investigated in association with phytochemicals such as allantoin, flavonoids, saponins and phenanthrenes. Phenanthrenes are especially considered the standard marker chemicals of the Chinese yam for their potent bioactivity and availability of analysis with conventional high performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection (HPLC-UV) methods. In order to investigate how much the contents of phenanthrenes are in the actual food products provided for consumers, D. batatas tuber was peeled and separated into its peel and flesh as in the conventional processing method. A quantitative analysis using the HPLC-UV method revealed that phenanthrenes are concentrically present in the D. batatas peel, while phenanthrenes are present in the flesh under the limit of detection. The difference in the contents of phenanthrenes is estimated to have arisen the considerable difference of antioxidant potential between the peel and the flesh. The results from this study suggest the high value of the discarded biomass of the Chinese yam peel and the necessity for the utilization of the Chinese yam peel.
Keywords: Chinese yam; Dioscorea batatas; phenanthrenes; quantitative analysis.