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Flavonoids, secondary plant metabolites with many health-promoting properties, including antioxidant, are a valuable component of food products, especially functional foods. In the latter, plant extracts are commonly used, the properties of which are attributed to the characteristic main ingredients. However, in a mixture the antioxidant properties of the individual ingredients do not always show an additive effect. This paper presents and discusses the antioxidant properties of naturally occurring flavonoid aglycones and their binary mixtures. In the experiments, model systems were used that differed in the volume of the alcoholic antioxidant solution in the measuring system and its concentration in the range in which it occurs in nature. Antioxidant properties were determined by ABTS and DPPH methods. The presented data proved that the dominant resultant effect in the mixtures is antioxidant antagonism. The magnitude of the observed antagonism depends on the mutual relations of individual components, their concentrations and the method used to assess antioxidant properties. It was shown that the observed non-additive antioxidant effect of the mixture results from the formation of intramolecular hydrogen bonds between phenolic groups of the antioxidant molecule. The presented results may be useful in the context of proper design of functional foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analytical procedures for determining plant constituents involve the application of sample preparation methods to fully isolate and/or pre-concentrate the analyzed substances. High-temperature liquid extraction is still applied most frequently for this purpose. The present paper shows that high-temperature extraction cannot be applied for the analysis of chlorogenic acids (CQAs) and their derivatives in plants as it causes the CQAs transformation leading to erroneous quantitative estimations of these compounds. Experiments performed on different plants (black elder, hawthorn, nettle, yerba maté, St John’s wort and green coffee) demonstrate that the most appropriate method for the estimation of CQAs/CQAs derivatives is sea sand disruption method (SSDM) because it does not induce any transformation and/or degradation processes in the analyzed substances. Owing to the SSDM method application we found that the investigated plants, besides four main CQAs, contain sixteen CQAs derivatives, among them three quinic acids. The application of SSDM in plant analysis not only allows to establish a true concentration of individual CQAs in the examined plants but also to determine which chlorogenic acids derivatives are native plant components and what is their concentration level. What is even more important, the application of SSDM in plant analysis allows to eliminate errors that may arise or might have arisen in the study of chlorogenic acids and their derivatives in plant metabolism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of different purge times on the yield of the main essential oil constituents of rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.), thyme (Thymus vulgaris L.), and chamomile (Chamomilla recutita L.) was investigated. The pressurized liquid extraction process was performed by applying different extraction temperatures and solvents. The results presented in the paper show that the estimated yield of essential oil components extracted from the plants in the pressurized liquid extraction process is purge time-dependent. The differences in the estimated yields are mainly connected with the evaporation of individual essential oil components and the applied solvent during the purge; the more volatile an essential oil constituent is, the greater is its loss during purge time, and the faster the evaporation of the solvent during the purge process is, the higher the concentration of less volatile essential oil components in the pressurized liquid extraction receptacle. The effect of purge time on the estimated yield of individual essential oil constituents is additionally differentiated by the extraction temperature and the extraction ability of the applied solvent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The transformation of curcumin during its extraction in different systems. • The influence of extraction method on curcumin transformation was examined. • The influence of extractant type and pH on curcumin transformation was examined. • Formation of hydroxy and alkoxy adducts of different curcumin isomers. • MS2, HRMS and NMR analysis of curcumin transformation products. Abstract Curcumin is a phenolic compound produced by some plants, among which Curcuma longa is the reachest in this principal curcuminoid. Curcumin is known from its lability, however, the structural curcumin transformations and the formation of hydroxy and alkoxy adducts has not been reported yet. The formation of the mentioned derivatives is favoured by an alkaline environment. The presented results are important both from the analytical and food processing point of view as curcumin transformation products can be mistakenly treated as new components naturally present in turmeric, while in fact they may be formed during food products preparation, causing consumer misinformation about their bioactivity. In this context, an attempt has been made to investigate this problem. The present paper shows that curcumin easily transforms into ketonic/enolic structural isomers and forms adducts with water and alcohols. All structures of these compounds were confirmed by MS n , HRMS and partly also by NMR data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]