Abstract
Plant food biofortification is recently receiving remarkable attention, as it aims to increase the intake of minerals, vitamins, or antioxidants, crucial for their contribution to the general human health status and disease prevention. In this context, the study of the plant’s secondary metabolites, such as polyphenols, plays a pivotal role for the development of a new generation of plant crops, compensating, at least in part, the low nutritional quality of Western diets with a higher quality of dietary sources. Due to the prevalent immunomodulatory activity at the intestinal level, polyphenols represent a nutritionally relevant class of plant secondary metabolites. In this review, we focus on the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of different classes of polyphenols with a specific attention to their potential in the prevention of intestinal pathological processes. We also discuss the latest biotechnology strategies and new advances of genomic techniques as a helpful tool for polyphenols biofortification and the development of novel, healthy dietary alternatives that can contribute to the prevention of inflammatory bowel diseases.
Highlights
Polyphenols are secondary metabolites, widespread in many fruits, vegetables and plant byproducts commonly consumed in the human diet
The consumption of foods and beverages enriched in polyphenols have been associated to the prevention of human diseases related to cellular oxidative stress [2]
The presence of hydroxyl groups, for example, confers to polyphenols the capacity to participate in oxidation reactions, which take part in several physiological processes [5]
Summary
Polyphenols are secondary metabolites, widespread in many fruits, vegetables and plant byproducts commonly consumed in the human diet. Plant polyphenols show a wide structural and chemical variability, among different families of plant kingdom or within the same family [4] This structural diversity suggests that they do not play the same function: the different biological activities are influenced by the amounts and the nature of the lateral moieties linked to the basic structural backbone, composed by variously hydroxylated or decorated aromatic rings. Based on the number of aromatic rings and the structural elements linked to these basic rings, polyphenols can be distinguished in different classes: phenolic acids, including hydroxybenzoic and hydroxycinnamic acids; flavonoids, including flavonols, flavanones, isoflavones, flavanols; anthocyanins; stilbenes [12] (Figure 1; Table 1)
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