Feasibility and application of liquid-liquid extraction combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry for the analysis of phenolic acids from polyphenols degraded by human faecal microbiota

Abstract

In this study the feasibility of a LLE-GC-EI-MS method for the analysis of 43 phenolic acids belonging to different chemical structure families which have been described in the literature as microbial-derived metabolites after consumption of dietary polyphenols was proved. In addition, the method was applied for the characterisation of phenolic metabolites resulting from the incubation, in anaerobic conditions, of a commercial grape seed extract (GSE) and their corresponding flavan-3-ol monomeric (GSE-M) and oligomeric (GSE-O) fractions with human faeces from healthy volunteers (n = 3). The method showed average values of repeatability and reproducibility of 5.0% and 6.3%, respectively, adequate and low detection (1.8-30.8 μg L -1) and quantification limits (6.0-102.8 μg L -1) and good recovery values (95%, as average value). A total of 27 phenolic acids were identified in the faecal solutions after incubation with the grape seed extracts. In general, faecal samples incubated with GSE and GSE-M (monomeric fraction) yield a higher formation of phenolic acids compared to the samples incubated with the oligomer fraction (GSE-O).