Polyphenol Research Paper

Polyphenols (also sometimes termed ‘phenolics’), are benzene rings which is a class of chemical compounds that consists of a hydroxyl (-OH) group, which is directly bonded to an aromatic hydrocarbon group. Phenolic compounds are widely produced industrially however; they are also produced by plants (mainly for protection against stress) and microorganisms where variations occur between different species.
Polyphenols play vital roles in the growth of plants, especially in lignin and pigment biosynthesis. They are responsible for providing structure and scaffolding to plants, more importantly, phytoalexins that are secreted by wounded plants kill certain microorganisms, and some pathogenic organisms can counteract these defences and sometimes
The colour change observed is usually in shades of blue (as seen in Figure 1) and is darker with higher concentrations of the reactive compounds, this colour change occurs because the samples containing polyphenols are reduced by the Folin–Ciocalteu reagent. The reagent will react with any reducing substances in the sample thus making filtration a vital step in sample preparation.
The standards used to determine the standard curve (Figure 3) were prepared using gallic acid and 40% ethanol. This is because gallic acid is a type of phenolic acid. It is a common industry standard used in determining phenol contents of various samples (Waterhouse and Laurie).
The absorbance of the sample and standard were measured at 760nm against the reagent blank(Table 1). There was a direct relationship between absorbance and concentration with max absorbance being 2.5107 at a concentration of 0.32mg/ml. The sample measured 2.7003 at 760nm (Figure 2). These values were then used to calculate the % phenol in the sample. This was calculated to be 43.02%. This falls between the ranges of 30-80% as observed by researchers in the
The preventive effects of these secondary plant metabolites in terms of cardiovascular, neurodegenerative diseases and cancer are deduced from epidemiologic data as well as in vitro tests such as the Folin–Ciocalteu method and results in respective nutritional recommendations. Furthermore, polyphenols were found to modulate the activity of a wide range of enzyme and cell receptors. In this way, in addition to having antioxidant properties, polyphenols have several other specific biological actions in preventing and or treating diseases. There are a some polyphenols which play a role in the production of germicides and disinfectants and others possesses estrogenic and endocrine disrupting