NMR and HPLC profiling of bee pollen products from different countries

Peng Lu; Saki Takiguchi; Yuka Honda; Yi Lu; Taichi Mitsui; Shingo Kato; Rina Kodera; Kazuo Furihata; Mimin Zhang; Ken Okamoto; Hideaki Itoh; Michio Suzuki; Hiroyuki Kono; Koji Nagata

doi:10.1016/j.fochms.2022.100119

NMR and HPLC profiling of bee pollen products from different countries

Food Chem (Oxf). 2022 Jul 6:5:100119. doi: 10.1016/j.fochms.2022.100119. eCollection 2022 Dec 30.

Authors

Peng Lu¹, Saki Takiguchi¹, Yuka Honda¹, Yi Lu¹, Taichi Mitsui², Shingo Kato², Rina Kodera², Kazuo Furihata³, Mimin Zhang¹, Ken Okamoto¹, Hideaki Itoh¹, Michio Suzuki¹, Hiroyuki Kono², Koji Nagata^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Applied Biological Chemistry, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Science, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan.
² Nagaragawa Research Center, API Co., Ltd., 692-3 Nagara, Gifu-City, Gifu 502-0071, Japan.
³ Advanced Instrumental Analysis Unit, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Science, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan.
⁴ Agricultural Bioinformatics Research Unit, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Science, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan.

Abstract

Bee pollen, a beehive product collected from flowers by honeybees, contains over 250 biological substances, and has attracted increasing attention as a functional food. However, commercial bee pollen products are often multifloral, and samples from different countries vary significantly. There is no universal standard for objective quality assessment of bee pollen based on its chemical composition. Here, we report metabolomic analysis of 11 bee pollen samples from Spain, China, and Australia for quality control. The characteristics of the samples depend on the sucrose, nucleoside, amino acid, and flavanol concentrations. Bee pollen samples from Spain and Australia had higher sucrose and adenosine concentrations, whereas those from China had higher trigonelline, uridine, and cytidine concentrations. Interestingly, acetic acid was only detected in samples from China. These components can be used to identify the country of origin. The obtained profiles of the samples will contribute to universal standard development for bee pollen products.

Keywords: Bee pollen; Component profiling; Flavonoids; Metabolomics; Principal component analysis.