Chemical ecology of tannins: recent developments in tannin chemistry reveal new structures and structure-activity patterns

Juha-Pekka Salminen; Maarit Karonen; Jari Sinkkonen

doi:10.1002/chem.201002662

Chemical ecology of tannins: recent developments in tannin chemistry reveal new structures and structure-activity patterns

Chemistry. 2011 Mar 1;17(10):2806-16. doi: 10.1002/chem.201002662. Epub 2011 Feb 9.

Authors

Juha-Pekka Salminen¹, Maarit Karonen, Jari Sinkkonen

Affiliation

¹ Laboratory of Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Department of Chemistry, University of Turku, 20014 University of Turku, Finland. j-p.salminen@utu.fi

PMID: 21308809
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201002662

Abstract

Tannins are chemically complex plant polyphenols and only little is known of their true molecule-specific anti-herbivore activities. Here we will show that modern tannin chemistry is able to reveal fully new types of tannins in plants together with new types of biological activities for the tannins. Most of these new findings relate to ellagitannins, one of the least studied and underestimated classes of bioactive plant polyphenols.