Metabolic Fate of Tea Polyphenols in Humans

Abstract

Polyphenols, a ubiquitous group of secondary plant metabolites sharing at least one aromatic ring structure with one or more hydroxyl groups, represent a large group of natural antioxidants abundant in fruits, vegetables, and beverages, such as grape juice, wine, and tea, and are widely considered to contribute to health benefits in humans. However, little is yet known concerning their bioactive forms in vivo and the mechanisms by which they may alter our metabolome, which ultimately contribute toward disease prevention. Here we report a study to determine the metabolic fate of polyphenolic components in a Chinese tea (Pu-erh) in human subjects using a metabonomic profiling approach coupled with multivariate and univariate statistical analysis. Urine samples were collected at 0 h, 1 h, 3 h, 6 h, 9 h, 12 h, and 24 h within the first 24 h and once a day during a 6 week period including a 2 week baseline phase, a 2 week daily Pu-erh tea ingestion phase, and a 2 week "wash-out" phase, and they were analyzed by gas chromatography mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. The dynamic concentration profile of bioavailable plant molecules (due to in vivo absorption and the hepatic and gut bacterial metabolism) and the human metabolic response profile were measured and correlated with each other. This study demonstrates that the metabonomic strategy will enable us to integrate the overwhelming amount of metabolic end points as a systems' response to the absorption, metabolism, and disposition of a multicomponent botanical intervention system, leading to a direct elucidation of their mechanisms of action.

An Integrated Approach for Studying Exposure, Metabolism, and Disposition of Multiple Component Herbal Medicines Using High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry and Multiple Data Processing Tools

“…To overcome the limitations of targeted data-mining techniques, a few untargeted analysis methods, including metabolomics (Xie et al, 2012;Yan et al, 2013) and in-house-developed background subtraction techniques (Gong et al, 2012;Yan et al, 2013), have been applied to the detection of TCM components in vivo. In this study, PATBS has demonstrated several distinct advantages over targeted and other untargeted LC/MS approaches in detecting TCM components in complex biologic samples.…”

Rats’ Metabolic Responses to Chronic Intervention with Cantonese Herbal Tea

“…The treated group was orally fed 0.4 mg.g -1 of CHT daily for 38 days, while control rats received the same amount of water. Urine samples were collected at days 0, 8,14,20,26,33 and 38 during the Herbal Tea treatment period. Precipitated solids were removed by centrifugation at 12,000 rpm, and urine samples were stored at -80°C prior to GC-MS analysis.…”

“…In comparison of genomics and proteomics, metabonomics enables the monitoring of real end-point metabolic changes following physiological and pathophysiological stimuli [13] and interpret holistic, quantitative data on time-dependent metabolic variation in response to a xenobiotic intervention, without prior knowledge of its composition. Recently, considerable efforts are being expended to enhance the understanding of the mechanisms of and individual responses to dietary intervention with the aid of metabonomics [14][15][16]. However, current studies are still relatively simple because the active ingredients have known biochemical targets.…”

Green Tea: A Potential Alternative Anti-Infectious Agent Catechins and Viral Infections

“…Polyphenols describes the chemical compound structure of having several hydroxyl functional groups (−OH) attached to an aromatic hydrocarbon group (Xie et al, 2012). Categorized as secondary metabolites, polyphenols can also be divided into smaller subgroups.…”