Understanding Polyphenol Complexity: Analytical Challenges and Opportunities

Dr. Juha-Pekka Salminen will present on the strategic topic: "Understanding Polyphenol Complexity: Analytical Challenges and Opportunities" at Polyphenols Applications 2026 which will be held in Malaga, Spain on October 8-9.

Plants produce a myriad of polyphenol structures, some of which are so complex that they do not get easily detected and characterized by conventional analytical platforms. Most likely the most complex and perhaps also most widely distributed polyphenols in the plant kingdom are tannins. Tannin analysis is further complicated by them being present in the plant cell as mixtures of even hundreds of variable structures. We have focused on developing tools for their separation, detection, isolation and characterization for several years. These developments have allowed us to find the largest ellagitannins in the plant kingdom, structures three times the sizes of the previously known ones. At the same time, we have developed so-called group-specific UHPLC-MS/MS tools for the automated and rapid detection of gallic acid derivatives, ellagitannins, procyanidins, prodelphinidins, properlagonidins and profisetinidins. By using such tools, it has been possible to screen almost 4000 plant species for their tannin composition. This has allowed us to find certain types of tannins for the first time in a big number of species and to focus our future research on a selected set of plant families and genera in e.g. our effort to find the most effective tannin candidates to be used as antimicrobials.