Flavonol structures

It has been demonstrated that some flavonoids—with flavonol structure—inhibit the growth of Proteus vulgaris and Staphylococcus aureus (Mitscher et al, 1980). 

Hundreds of flavonols have been isolated and characterized many of them are biologically active. Hence a great synthetic interest has arisen. Some of the efforts have concentrated on the synthesis of naturally oecurring flavonols while others have focused on the synthesis of flavonol derivatives for structure activity relationships. ... 

In the example below, Bhardwaj and coworkers synthesized tetramethoxyflavone 36 this flavonol was believed to be the structure of a compound isolated from Artemisia annua Methyl ketone 37 and aldehyde 38 were smoothly condensed to afford chalcone 39 in 73% yield. 39 was then converted to 40 under slightly modified AFO conditions in low yield. Selective demethylation of 40 gave 36. However, spectral data and melting point data of 36 did not match up with the compound isolated from the plant. Hence, the original structure was misassigned and was not flavonol 36. 

Many recent stndies of NMR spectroscopy have been reported for structure elucidation of anthocyanins from many plant materials such as carrot, tart berries, boysenberries, " flowers, black soybeans, and anthocyanin and flavonol derivatives in red wine. Ginsti et al. (1998) structurally elucidated two novel diacylated anthocyanins and two monoacylated anthocyanins from radish Raphanus sativus) by one- and two-dimensional NMR. Anderson et al. (2006) applied two-dimensional NMR to characterize carboxypyranoanthocyanins. Two 3-deoxyantho-cyanins, lnteolinidin-5-glncoside, and apigeninidin-5-glucoside were identified by Swinny et al. nsing H and C NMR. 

Havonoids are made up of a number of classes of very similar groups in which two phenyl rings are connected by a three-carbon unit [10], The open structure members are yellow in color and termed as chalcones, and simple cyclization to a furanoid structure deepens the color to the orange aurones. The most usual flavonoids are, however, the pale-yellow flavones and flavonols, or 3-hydroxyflavones, which will be treated here, and the red-blue anthocyanins, which will be treated in the next section. Figure 13.4 shows examples of these main classes and their structural relationships. The natural compounds of all classes often occur as glycosides and as methyl ethers. 

FIGURE 13.5 Structures of the increasingly polar flavonols kaempferol, quercetin, and myricetin. 

These substances are present in small amounts in tea leaf but there is little quantitative data on their occurrence. Figure 3 shows the structure of several of these that have been identified. They occur both as free flavonols and glycosides.24 They may enter into the oxidative reactions that take place during tea manufacture.50... 

Flavonols and flavones have a double bond between C2 and C3 in the flavonoid structure and an oxygen atom at the C4 position. Furthermore, flavonols also have a hydroxyl group at the C3 position. Dihydroflavonols have the same structure as flavonols without the double bond between C2 and C3. 

Cuyckens F, Shahat AA, Van den Heuvel H, Abdel-Shafeek KA, El-Messiry MM, Seif-El Nasr MM, Pieters L, Vlietinck AJ and Claeys M. 2003. The application of liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry and collision-induced dissociation in the structural characterization of acylated flavonol O-glycosides from the seeds of Carrichtera annua. Eur J Mass Spectrom 9(4) 409-420. 

Figure 3.7. Structural relationships among flavonols, anthocyanidin, and anthocyanin.

Flavonoids are a complex group of polyphenolic compounds with a basic C6-C3-C6 structure that can be divided in different groups flavonols, flavones, flavanols (or flavan-3-ols), flavanones, anthocyanidins, and isoflavones. More than 6,000 flavonoids are known the most widespread are flavonols, such as quercetin flavones, such as lu-teolin and flavanols (flavan-3-ols), such as catechin. Anthocyanidins are also bioactive flavonoids they are water-soluble vegetable pigments found especially in berries and other red-blue fruits and vegetables. 

Flavonoids are secondary metabolites generally occurring in various plants as glycosides. The chemical structure of flavonoids shows high variety. The basic structure of flavons and flavonols is the 2-phenylbenzo-gamma-pyrone. Flavonoids generally contain two phenol rings linked with a linear three-carbon chain (chalcones) or with three carbon... 

Fig. 2.38. Basic chemical structure of flavones, flavonols and flavonoids (chalcones and aurones).

RETENTION TIMES AND TENTATIVE STRUCTURES OF FLAVONOL GLYCOSIDES IN THE UNHYDROLYSED BERRY EXTRACTS... 

Fig. 2.66. Chemical structures of flavonols in tea. Reprinted with permission from H. Wang et al. [182].

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