| Popis: |
Decreases in risk of chronic disease associated with diets high in fruits and vegetables have been observed. Difficulty in determining the active ingredients responsible for the beneficial effects of dietary plant intake comes in part from the lack of pre-clinical pharmaceutical characterization of compounds thought to play a role. Flavonoids are a class of low molecular weight secondary metabolites present in plants. Pinocembrin, pinostrobin, and liquiritigenin are three chiral flavonoid implicated in the chronic disease prevention seen in high plant diets. To further the pre-clinical development of novel compounds for the potential prevention of chronic disease, stereospecific analytical methods of detection and quantification were developed for pinocembrin, pinostrobin, and liquiritigenin in biological matrices. These methods were used to elucidate the enantiospecific pharmacokinetics of all three compounds in the rat. Additionally, pinocembrin, pinostrobin, and liquiritigenin enantiomers were quantified in multiple marketed natural health products and dietary supplements. Finally, the compounds were screened for activity in several in vitro pharmacodynamic assays with roles in chronic disease pathology to assess for potential stereopecific pharmacologic behaviour. The methods were successfully used to determine the stereospecific pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and content analysis of selected marketed products. Stereopecific differences were observed in several instances. Further stereospecific studies are needed, especially in the field of toxicokinetics. |
