Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Study: Measure Groups of Bioactive Propolis Compounds to Determine Quality

Chemical Characteristics of Poplar Type Propolis of Different Geographic Origin
Apidologie, 38 (2007) 306-306

Abstract - Validated spectrophotometric procedures were used to quantify three main groups of bioactive substances (phenolics, flavones/flavonols, flavanones/dihydroflavonols) in 114 samples of poplar-type propolis from different geographic origins.

From the results, we characterized raw poplar propolis in terms of minimum content of its bioactive components (antimicrobial and antioxidant) as follows: 45% resin, 21% total phenolics, 4% total flavones/flavonols; 4% total flavanones/dihydroflavonols, and a maximum Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) against S. aureus of 250 g/mL.

A significant negative correlation was observed between the amount of total phenolics and MIC.

The results indicate that measuring the concentrations of groups of active compounds, rather than individual components, is an appropriate approach in developing quality standards for propolis.

1 comment:

Kerry Clark said...

I was surprised to see the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) at the whopping 250 grams per milliliter, so I referred to the original abstract in Apidologie.
There, it is 250 micro grams, a thousand fold smaller.