Abstract
In the search for natural products with properties that may protect against or slow down chronic and degenerative diseases (e.g., cancer, and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative conditions), phenolic compounds (PC) with benefits for human health have been identified. The biological effects of PC in vivo depend on their bioavailability, intestinal absorption, metabolism, and interaction with target tissues. The identification of phenolic compounds metabolites (PCM), in biological samples, after food ingestion rich in PC is a first step to understand the overall effect on human health. However, their wide range of physicochemical properties, levels of abundance, and lack of reference standards, renders its identification and quantification a challenging task for existing analytical platforms. The most frequent approaches to metabolomics analysis combine mass spectrometry and NMR, parallel technologies that provide an overview of the metabolome and high-power compound elucidation. In this scenario, the aim of this review is to summarize the pre-analytical separation processes for plasma and urine samples and the technologies applied in quantitative and qualitative analysis of PCM. Additionally, a comparison of targeted and non-targeted approaches is presented, not available in previous reviews, which may be useful for future metabolomics studies of PCM.
Highlights
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.For several years, the benefits of phenolic compound (PC) intake have been described, especially as a protection from cardiovascular diseases [1,2]
The characterization of phenolic compounds’ metabolites (PCM) in plasma and urine is a strategy to understand the biological effects of phenolic compounds (PC) present in plant-derived feeds, foods, beverages, herbal medicines, and dietary supplements
During the last two decades, considerable progress has been achieved in sample preparation methods (PCM extraction, cleaning/purification, preconcentration, and derivation), allowing the analysis of PC and PCM with differentiated physicochemical properties
Summary
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.For several years, the benefits of phenolic compound (PC) intake have been described, especially as a protection from cardiovascular diseases [1,2]. The biological effects of PC in vivo depend on their bioavailability, intestinal absorption, metabolism, and interaction with target tissues [3]. The identification, in biological samples, of the phenolic compounds’ metabolites (PCM) produced after foods rich in PC intake, is a first step to understand the overall effect on human health [6]. The (i) enormous structural variety of PC (i.e., phenolic acids, flavan-3-ols, flavanones, flavones, flavonoids, lignans, among others), (ii) the lack of commercially available standards, (iii) the structural variability of PCM, (iv) metabolite degradation due to tedious multi-step sample preparation workflows, (v) instability of specific compounds, (vi) low analyte concentration, and (vii) frequent sample contamination [7,8,9,10], render their identification a complex task
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