Abstract
Information on compositional, nutritional and functional properties of bee-pollen, as a health-promoting food, is essential for defining its quality. Concerning the nutritional importance of phenolic compounds, the aim of this study was to determine the phenolic profile and antioxidant activity of twenty-four bee-pollen samples collected from different regions of Serbia. High-performance thin-layer chromatographic (HPTLC) fingerprinting was used for profiling of bee-pollen samples according to the botanical type. HPTLC hyphenated with image analysis and a pattern recognition technique confirmed the grouping of samples caused by the specific phenolic composition of pollens of different botanical origin. Flavonoid glycosides in bee-pollen samples were identified by applying ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled with linear ion trap-Orbitrap mass spectrometry (LTQ Orbitrap MS). Eight out of twenty-seven flavonol glycosides were identified in bee-pollen samples for the first time. All analyzed bee-pollen samples showed a high number of phenolic compounds which may have therapeutic potential.
Highlights
Bee-pollen is the main source of important nutrients and phytochemicals that honeybees collect for the purpose of feeding their larvae
In that sense, screening of phenolic mixtures of analyzed bee-pollen samples was performed by TLC analysis and obtained chromatograms observed as a unique multivariate fingerprint
Since the bee-pollen samples investigated in this study present a mixture of more than ten different pollen types, differentiation and classification based on chemical profile and distinct separation among the groups are difficult to perform, when observing only one class of compounds and not combining several groups of parameters
Summary
Bee-pollen is the main source of important nutrients and phytochemicals that honeybees collect for the purpose of feeding their larvae. It is a mixture of floral pollens, nectar and mouth secretions of bees, accumulated as pellets of different color, size and morphology. Due to its beneficial effect in the human diet, bee-pollen is considered as a health-promoting food. Inter alia, these effects are related to the antioxidant properties of the phenolic compounds present in pollen [1]. The characterization of phenolic compounds in bee-pollen has been of increasing interest in recent years
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