Concept
In biochemistry, naturally occurring phenols are natural products containing at least one phenol functional group. Phenolic compounds are produced by plants and microorganisms. Organisms sometimes synthesize phenolic compounds in response to ecological pressures such as pathogen and insect attack, UV radiation and wounding. As they are present in food consumed in human diets and in plants used in traditional medicine of several cultures, their role in human health and disease is a subject of research. Some phenols are germicidal and are used in formulating disinfectants. Various classification schemes can be applied. A commonly used scheme is based on the number of carbons and was devised by Jeffrey Harborne and Simmonds in 1964 and published in 1980: C6-C7-C6 Diarylheptanoids are not included in this Harborne classification. They can also be classified on the basis of their number of phenol groups. They can therefore be called simple phenols or monophenols, with only one phenolic group, or di- (bi-), tri- and oligophenols, with two, three or several phenolic groups respectively. A diverse family natural phenols are the flavonoids, which include several thousand compounds, among them the flavonols, flavones, flavan-3ol (catechins), flavanones, anthocyanidins, and isoflavonoids. The phenolic unit can be found dimerized or further polymerized, creating a new class of polyphenol. For example, ellagic acid is a dimer of gallic acid and forms the class of ellagitannins, or a catechin and a gallocatechin can combine to form the red compound theaflavin, a process that also results in the large class of brown thearubigins in tea. Two natural phenols from two different categories, for instance a flavonoid and a lignan, can combine to form a hybrid class like the flavonolignans. Nomenclature of polymers: Plants in the genus Humulus and Cannabis produce terpenophenolic metabolites, compounds that are meroterpenes. Phenolic lipids are long aliphatic chains bonded to a phenolic moiety. Many natural phenols are chiral.
