Amygdalin in bitter and sweet seeds of apricots Nazan Karsavuran a , Mohammad Charehsaz b , Hayati Celik c , Bayram Murat Asma d , Cengiz Yakıncı a and Ahmet Aydın b * a Department of Pediatry, Faculty of Medicine, Inonu University, Malatya, Turkey; b Department of Toxicology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey; c Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey; d Apricot Research and Application Center, Inonu University, Malatya, Turkey (Received 27 August 2014; accepted 14 March 2015) Hydrogen cyanide (HCN) poisoning due to amygdalin (AMY) in apricot seeds is one of the public health issues in Turkey. The aim of this study was to investigate the AMY content of 13 different apricot seeds including bitter and sweet ones, and which are either sulfurized or roasted. The AMY content was determined by a high- performance liquid chromatography. Release of HCN was predicted and total amount of seeds which can cause poisoning was calculated. The mean AMY content of bitter seeds was 26 § 14 mg g ¡1 and that of sweet seeds was 0.16 § 0.09 mg g ¡1 . The consumption of small amounts of bitter seeds may cause cyanide poisoning. Keywords: cyanide; HPLC; poisoning; amygdalin; apricot 1. Introduction Plants which may release hydrogen cyanide (HCN) upon acidic or enzymatic hydrolysis are known as cyanogenic plants, and 23 different glycosides have been discovered in 2000 cyanogenic plants, the most common being amygdalin (AMY) (Akintonwa and Tunwashe 1992). Due to high AMY content and relatively more easy HCN release, apri- cot seeds draw attention of toxicologists among other seeds, such as those of apple and peach. Cyanogenic glycosides are not toxic on their own but when ingested they are hydrolyzed by b-glycosidase or emulsion (Newton et al. 1981; Suchard, Wallace, and Gerkin 1998; Dorr and Paxinos 1978; Haisman and Knight 1967) to yield one molecule HCN, two molecules glycose, and one molecule benzaldehyde (Herbert 1979). As the seeds containing AMY are consumed, HCN is released under the acidic conditions of the stomach (Speijers 2014; Megarbane et al. 2003). The HCN content of apricot seeds is estimated in the range of 0.14.1 mg g ¡1 (an average of 2.9 mg g ¡1 ) (Holzbecher, Moss, and Ellenberger 1984) and the amount of cyanide in the seeds differ depending on the kind and the region where they are cultivated. Bitter seeds contain more AMY than sweet ones and the bitterness gets stronger as the amount of AMY increases (Godfredsen et al. 1978). Cyanide can cause sudden deaths since it is rapidly taken up into cells to block the mitochondrial electron transport within seconds (Shepherd and Velez 2008). The lowest fatal oral dose of cyanide for humans was estimated as 0.56 mg kg ¡1 (Gettler and Baine 1938). Apricot seeds are used in the cosmetics and drug industry and are an economically important commodity of the Malatya region (Asma and Mısırlı 2007; Dwivedi and Ram *Corresponding author. Email: ahmet.aydin@yeditepe.edu.tr Ó 2015 Taylor & Francis Toxicological & Environmental Chemistry, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02772248.2015.1030667 Downloaded by [Yeditepe Universitesi], [Ahmet Aydin] at 07:18 17 April 2015