Analytical Techniques for the Identification and Quantification of Flavonoids

Abstract

Flavonoids are of great interest in relation to their actions in living organisms and their role in biological and physiological interactions. In regard to the significance of the pharmaceutical nature of flavonoids, the focus at present is on rapid, cheap, reproducible, and precise analytical procedures to measure flavonoids in a variety of matrices. These procedures are necessary for quality control, for the standardization of extracts, for determining the number of flavonoids, and for determining the pharmacokinetic properties of flavonoids in humans. This chapter outlines various analytical procedures, such as liquid chromatography, gas chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, and thin-layer chromatography, for the investigation of key flavonoids. Because of the growing interest in flavonoid structure, the focus will be on the use of tandem-mass spectrometric techniques for the characterization of some significant flavonoid subclasses, and on the possibility of using combined diode-array detector ultraviolet and nuclear magnetic resonance for unambiguous detection.