Phenolic Composition of Propolis from China and from South America

Abstract

Flavonoids and other phenolic compounds were determined in 15 samples of propolis originating from China, from Brazil, and from Uruguay. A total of 24 compounds were identified using mainly HPLC and a few other analytical methods. The most abundant compounds found were benzoic acid and benzaldehyde derivatives, flavones, flavonols. and flavanones. 80% of the samples contained at least 22 g/100 g of flavonoids, primarily acacetin, isorhamnetin, apigenin, and pinocembrin. The flavonoid patterns were sufficiently distinctive to permit discrimination between propolis from China, from Uruguay, and from Brazil.

Análise de própolis

“…Sua composição química é variada, sendo que já foram identificadas mais de 200 substâncias em própolis de diferentes localidades, incluindo ácidos fenólicos, flavonóides, ésteres, diterpenos, sesquiterpenos, lignanas, aldeídos aromáticos, álcoois, aminoácidos, ácidos graxos, vitaminas e minerais [9,13,20,26,30,36,37,39,42,50,53,57,49,59]. Dentre estas classes de substâncias, destacam-se a dos flavonóides e a dos ácidos fenólicos, pois é atribuída a elas grande parte das atividades biológicas constatadas para a própolis.…”

Própolis produzida no sul do Brasil, Argentina e Uruguai: evidências fitoquímicas de sua origem vegetal

“…Entretanto, na América do Sul a espécie vegetal do gênero Populus não é nativa, existindo uma grande diversidade vegetal para a retirada de resina, o que dificulta a correlação da própolis com a fonte produtora. A dependência geográfica e vegetal da própolis é exemplificada nas análises de própolis da América do Sul, Europa, China, Canadá e Espanha (KÖNIG, 1985;GREENAWAY et al, 1990;GARCIA-VIGUERA et al, 1992;TOMAS-BARBERAN et al, 1993;BONVEHI & COLL, 1994;PARK et al, 2000).…”

Flavonoid and Antioxidant Capacity of Propolis Prediction Usingnear Infrared Spectroscopy

“…The content of flavones andflavonols is quantified as described [11][12][13]18,35],with minor modifications. 0.5 ml of a solution of AlCl3 in ethanol is added to 2ml of propolis alcoholic extract.…”

“…The samples were collected mostly with a mesh and by using the scraping technique from different beekeepers. They were ground up in a Foss Knifetecc 10095 grinder (Höganäs, Sweden), their NIR spectra were recorded, and all samples were kept frozen until used in the laboratory.When using the solutions of the propolis, extracts are prepared according to the method proposed by [11][12][13]18,35], with slight modifications. Ten milliliters of methanol were added to a 1 g aliquot of sample, and extraction was subsequently carried out in an ultrasonic bath for 15 min.…”

“…These substances have a resinous appearance and a pleasant sweet aroma. In accordance with the time of year when they are collected and their botanical origin they vary in colour (yellow, greenish, grey-brown, brown, reddish, and even black), taste (bitter, slightly spicy, or insipid) and consistency, beingbrittle at low temperatures and viscous at higher temperatures; these aspects influence their properties [4,1].The detailed chemical composition of propolis is highly complexand is characterised by the presence of biologically active compounds such as polyphenols [5], which include flavonoids, phenolic acids, and theiresters [6].The varied composition of propolis gives it multiple therapeutic properties that make it for example antioxidant, antimicrobial (antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral), anti-inflammatory, antitumoral (cytostatic), healing, immunostimulating, anaesthetic, anti-ulcerous, hypotensive, anticariogenic, anti-allergic, and antiparasitic [7][8][9][10].Numerous studies exist on the spectrophotometric determination of flavonoids in propolis types such asflavonesand flavonolsusing as a reference quercetin or rutin, applying the method proposed by Bonvehíet al, (1994) [11], which has been adopted by other researchers [12,13]. The determination offlavanones anddihydroflavonolsin propolis by means of spectrophotometric methods [14]is based on the reaction of these compounds to 3.4-dinitrophenylhydrazine (DNP) to obtain coloured yellowphenylhydrazone usingpinocembrin as a reference [12,15].As for the individualised quantification of these compounds, it is carried out by chromatography [12,[16][17][18].The antioxidant capacity of raw propolis can be determined by various methods.…”