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Concept
Flavonoid
Summary
Flavonoids (or bioflavonoids; from the Latin word flavus, meaning yellow, their color in nature) are a class of polyphenolic secondary metabolites found in plants, and thus commonly consumed in the diets of humans.
Chemically, flavonoids have the general structure of a 15-carbon skeleton, which consists of two phenyl rings (A and B) and a heterocyclic ring (C, the ring containing the embedded oxygen). This carbon structure can be abbreviated C6-C3-C6. According to the IUPAC nomenclature,
they can be classified into:
flavonoids or bioflavonoids
isoflavonoids, derived from 3-phenylchromen-4-one (3-phenyl-1,4-benzopyrone) structure
neoflavonoids, derived from 4-phenylcoumarine (4-phenyl-1,2-benzopyrone) structure
The three flavonoid classes above are all ketone-containing compounds and as such, anthoxanthins (flavones and flavonols). This class was the first to be termed bioflavonoids. The terms flavonoid and bioflavonoid have also been more loosely used to describe non-ketone polyhydroxy polyphenol compounds, which are more specifically termed flavanoids. The three cycles or heterocycles in the flavonoid backbone are generally called ring A, B, and C. Ring A usually shows a phloroglucinol substitution pattern.
In the 1930s, Albert Szent-Györgyi and other scientists discovered that Vitamin C alone was not as effective at preventing scurvy as the crude yellow extract from oranges, lemons or paprika. They attributed the increased activity of this extract to the other substances in this mixture, which they referred to as "citrin" (referring to citrus) or "Vitamin P" (a reference to its effect on reducing the permeability of capillaries). The substances in question (hesperidin, eriodictyol, hesperidin methyl chalcone and neohesperidin) were however later shown not to fulfil the criteria of a vitamin, so that this term is now obsolete.
Flavonoid biosynthesis
Flavonoids are secondary metabolites synthesized mainly by plants. The general structure of flavonoids is a 15-carbon skeleton, containing 2 benzene rings connected by a 3-carbon linking chain.
Official source
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