Analytical methods applied to diverse types of Brazilian propolis

Abstract

Propolis is a bee product, composed mainly of plant resins and beeswax, therefore its chemical composition varies due to the geographic and plant origins of these resins, as well as the species of bee. Brazil is an important supplier of propolis on the world market and, although green colored propolis from the southeast is the most known and studied, several other types of propolis from Apis mellifera and native stingless bees (also called cerumen) can be found. Propolis is usually consumed as an extract, so the type of solvent and extractive procedures employed further affect its composition. Methods used for the extraction; analysis the percentage of resins, wax and insoluble material in crude propolis; determination of phenolic, flavonoid, amino acid and heavy metal contents are reviewed herein. Different chromatographic methods applied to the separation, identification and quantification of Brazilian propolis components and their relative strengths are discussed; as well as direct insertion mass spectrometry fingerprinting.Propolis has been used as a popular remedy for several centuries for a wide array of ailments. Its antimicrobial properties, present in propolis from different origins, have been extensively studied. But, more recently, anti-parasitic, anti-viral/immune stimulating, healing, anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and analgesic activities of diverse types of Brazilian propolis have been evaluated. The most common methods employed and overviews of their relative results are presented.

Total phenols and antioxidant activities of natural honeys and propolis collected from different geographical regions of Ethiopia

“…This is because one of the factors that affects the yield and composition of hydro-ethanolic extracts of propolis is the concentration of ethanol used; solvents containing 70% of ethanol or more extracted more propolis resins by maceration [28]. Accordingly, the yield of the five propolis samples were obtained after macerating the samples for 20 days with intermittent shaking and lyophilazation after evaporating the alcohol component of the supernatant solution with a Rota vapor under vacuum.…”

Melipona mondury produces a geopropolis with antioxidant, antibacterial and antiproliferative activities

“…UHPLC-MS has been used widely for analyzing propolis (Bankova et al 2000, Sawaya et al 2011, Novak et al 2014, Wali et al 2015, Ristivojević et al 2015, Sagi et al 2016, but it has limitations in terms of the identification of uncommon substances because there is no database for making comparisons among geopropolis samples. Therefore, the unambiguous characterization of the compounds corresponding to the ions at m/z 601, 475, and 569 may be possible after their isolation and further analysis using other spectrometric methods (e.g., NMR), in addition to MS experiments.…”

Effects of seasonal variations and collection methods on the mineral composition of propolis from Apis mellifera Linnaeus Beehives

“…The regional chemical composition of propolis can interfere in its biological properties (Simões-Ambrosio et al, 2010;Toreti et al, 2013;Bankova et al, 2014, Souza et al, 2014. The presence of phenolic compounds, steroids, terpenes, and amino acids in propolis has been extensively studied (Sawaya et al, 2011;Finger et al, 2014). Until 2000, over 300 chemical components belonging to the phytochemical classes flavonoids, terpenes, organic acids, and phenolics have been identified in propolis (Huang et al, 2014).…”