Syntheses of flavonoids and studies of immunomodulatory/neuroprotectant effects of educts and metabolites

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Peter Schreier
• Subject Area: Nutritional Sciences
• Term: from 2003 to 2006
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5400180

In order to ascertain the role of dietary flavonoids for their bioactive potential in vivo it is necessary to understand the chemical nature of multiple metabolites. With the integrated syntheses of the anthocyanidin pelargonidin (1) and the flavone hispidulin (2) including their 2-14C-variants the way will be paved to exert two interactive strategy lines, i.e. to perform chemical-analytical as well as bioactivity studies. The chemically oriented part of the project comprises metabolic studies to transform the synthesized (1) and (2) using the pig caecum model. This part of the work includes syntheses of metabolites to guarantee structurally secured information to be evaluated by suitable techniques, preferably, GC-MS, HPLC-MS (MS/MS) and NMR. In cooperation, bioactivity studies with the educts and their metabolites are carried out. They comprise functional investigations on the antioxidative activity in stimulated human neutrophils, interactions with NFkB-transcription factors as well as downstream gene expression profiling. An important input to the cooperating group of Dr. Marko will be the providing of the synthesized samples of (1) for her own bioactivity studies. Further synergism will be achieved by interacting our synthetic, chemical-analytical and functional know-how with the partners expertise.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Persons: Professorin Dr. Elke Richling; Professor Dr. Peter Riederer