IS QUERCETIN ACCUMULATING IN EGGS USING FLAVONOIDS-ENRICHED POULTARY FEED?

Flavonoids-enriched feed, besides enhancing poultry performance like increase in meat’s shelf life, egg laying rate, egg shell strength, protein contents and Haugh unit and decrease in fats contents of yolk, may result in accumulation of active components such as quercetin in eggs, which has not yet verified. Therefore, the present study describes a simple ultraviolet spectrophotometric method for the determination of quercetin in egg white and yolk. The analyte was extracted from both parts of the egg and specifically detected at 370 nm. The detection was not compromised by degradation products of the analyte produced under stress conditions. Beer’s range was found to be 2.50-37.50 µg/mL with correlation coefficient approaching 0.998. LOD and LOQ were found to be 0.15 and 0.47 µg/mL, respectively. The recovery, intraday accuracy and inter-day accuracy were found to be (98.49-100.89%), (99.12-101.78) and (98.13-104.53%), respectively. The method showed precision because relative standard deviation was less than 5%. The fortified and domestic eggs showed the presence of quercetin in both the parts. The results of the present study indicate that quercetin accumulates in egg, and the method is simple, accurate, repeatable and reproducible.