Abstract
In exploring the capability of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy for pomegranate juice analysis, the eight aromatic singlet resonances of α- and β-punicalagin were clearly identified in the 1H NMR spectra of juice samples. The four downfield resonances were found to be sensitive to small pH changes around pH 3.50 where the NMR spectra of the juice samples were recorded. To understand this unusual behavior, the 1H and 13C resonance assignments of the punicalagin anomers were determined in aqueous solution and pH titrations with UV and 1H NMR detection carried out to characterize the acid–base properties of punicalagin over the pH range 2–8. Simultaneous fitting of all of the pH-sensitive 1H NMR signals produced similar but significantly different pK a values for the first two deprotonation equilibria of the gallagic acid moiety of the punicalagin α- (pK a1 = 4.57 ± 0.02, pK a2 = 5.63 ± 0.03) and β- (pK a1 = 4.36 ± 0.01, pK a2 = 5.47 ± 0.02) anomers. Equivalent pK a values, (α : 6.64 ± 0.01, β : 6.63± 0.01) were measured for the third deprotonation step involving the ellagic acid group, in good agreement with a prior literature report. The punicalagin anomer equilibrium readjusts in parallel with the proton dissociation steps as the pH is raised such that β-punicalagin becomes the most abundant anomer at neutral pH. The unusual upfield shifts observed for the glucose H3 and H5 resonances with increasing pH along with the shift in the α/β anomer equilibrium are likely the consequence of a conformational rearrangement.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Lansky EP, Newman R (2007) Punica granatum (pomegranate) and its potential for prevention and treatment of inflammation and cancer. J Ethnopharmacol 109:177–206
Faria A, Colhau C (2011) The bioactivity of pomegranate: impact on health and disease. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr 51:626–634
Pantuck AJ, Leppert JT, Zomorodian N, Aronson W, Hong J, Barnard RJ, Seeram N, Liker H, Wang H, Elashoff R, Heber D, Aviram M, Ignarro L, Belldegrun A (2006) Phase II study of pomegranate juice for men with rising prostate-specific antigen following surgery or radiation for prostate cancer. Clin Cancer Res 12:4018–4026
Rosenblat M, Hayek T, Aviram M (2006) Anti-oxidative effects of pomegranate juice (PJ) consumption by diabetic patients on serum and on macrophages. Atherosclerosis 187:363–371
Rock W, Rosenblat M, Miller-Lotan R, Levy AP, Elias M, Aviram M (2008) Consumption of wonderful variety pomegranate juice and extract by diabetic patients increases paraoxonase 1 association with high-density lipoprotein and stimulates its catalytic activities. J Agric Food Chem 56:8704–8713
Kasimsetty SG, Bialonska D, Reddy MK, Ma G, Khan SI, Ferreira D (2010) Colon cancer chemopreventive activities of pomegranate ellagitannins and urolithins. J Agric Food Chem 58:2180–2187
Gil MI, Tomás-Barberán FA, Hess-Pierce B, Holcroft DM, Kader AA (2000) Antioxidant activity of pomegranate juice and its relationship with phenolic composition and processing. J Agric Food Chem 48:4581–4589
Qu W, Breksa AP III, Pan Z, Ma H (2012) Quantitative determination of major polyphenol constituents in pomegranate products. Food Chem 132:1585–1591
Martin KR, Krueger CG, Rodriquez G, Dreherd M, Reed JD (2009) Development of a novel pomegranate standard and new method for the quantitative measurement of pomegranate polyphenols. J Sci Food Agr 89:157–162
Zhang Y, Wang D, Lee RP, Henning SM, Heber D (2009) Absence of pomegranate ellagitannins in the majority of commercial pomegranate extracts: implications for standardization and quality control. J Agric Food Chem 57:7395–7400
Reid LM, O’Donnell CP, Downey GJ (2004) Potential of SPME-GC and chemometrics to detect adulteration of soft fruit purées. J Agric Food Chem 52:421–427
Koda M, Furihata K, Wei F, Miyakawa T, Tanokura M (2012) Metabolic discrimination of mango juice from various cultivars by band-selective NMR spectroscopy. J Agric Food Chem 60:1158–1166
Borges G, Crosier A (2012) HPLC–PDA–MS fingerprinting to assess the authenticity of pomegranate beverages. Food Chem 135:1863–1867
Vaclavik L, Schreiber A, Lacina O, Cajka T, Hajslova J (2012) Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry-based metabolomics for authenticity assessment of fruit juices. Metabolomics 8:793–803
Vardin H, Tay A, Ozen B, Mauer L (2008) Authentication of pomegranate juice concentrate using FTIR spectroscopy and chemometrics. Food Chem 108:742–748
Barding GA, Salditos R, Larive CK (2012) Quantitative NMR for bioanalysis and metabolomics. Anal Bioanal Chem 404:1165–1179
Doig AJ, Williams DH, Oelrichs PB, Baczynskyj L (1990) Isolation and structure elucidation of punicalagin, a toxic hydrolysable tannin, from Terminalia oblongata. J Chem Soc Perkin Trans 1:2317–2321
Jossang A, Pousset JL, Bodo B (1994) Combreglutinin, a hydrolysable tannin from Combretum glutinosum. J Nat Prod 57:732–737
Kulkarni AP, Aradhya SM, Divakar S (2004) Isolation and identification of a radical scavenging antioxidant–punicalagin from pith and carpellary membrane of pomegranate fruit. Food Chem 87:551–557
Queimada AJ, Mota FL, Pinho SP, Macedo EA (2009) Solubilities of biologically active phenolic compounds: measurements and modeling. J Phys Chem B 113:3469–3476
Ogg RJ, Kingsley PB, Taylor JS (1994) WET, a T1- and B1-insensitive water-suppression method for in vivo localized 1H NMR spectroscopy. J Magn Reson Ser B 104:1–10
Glasoe PK, Long FA (1960) Use of glass electrodes to measure acidities in deuterium oxide. J Phys Chem 64:188–190
Reynolds WF, Enríquez RG (2002) Choosing the best pulse sequences, acquisition parameters, postacquisition, processing strategies, and probes for natural product structure elucidation by NMR spectroscopy. J Nat Prod 65:221–244
Lin CE, Yu CJ, Chen CL, Chou LD, Chou C (2010) Kinetics of glucose mutarotation assessed by an equal-amplitude paired polarized heterodyne polarimeter. J Phys Chem A 114:1665–1669
Hwang TL, Shaka AJ (1992) Cross relaxation without TOCSY: transverse rotating-frame Overhauser effect spectroscopy. J Am Chem Soc 114:3157–3159
Claridge TDW, Pérez-Victoria I (2003) Enhanced 13C resolution in semi-selective HMBC: a band-selective, constant-time HMBC for complex organic structure elucidation by NMR. Org Biomol Chem 1:3632–3634
Albert A, Serjeant EP (1984) The determination of ionization constants: a laboratory manual, 3rd edn. Chapman and Hall, New York
Gross KC, Seybold PG (2001) Substituent effects on the physical properties and pK a of phenol. Int J Quant Chem 85:569–579
Mazák K, Dóczy V, Kökösi J, Noszál B (2009) Proton speciation and microspeciation of serotonin and 5-hydroxytryptophan. Chem Biodivers 6:578–590
Tóth G, Hosztafi S, Kovács Z, Noszál B (2012) The site-specific basicity of thyroid hormones and their precursors as regulators of their biological functions. J Pharm Biomed Anal 61:156–164
Szakács Z, Kraszni M, Noszál B (2004) Determination of microscopic acid–base parameters from NMR–pH titrations. Anal Bioanal Chem 378:1428–1448
Marosi A, Szalay Z, Beni S, Szakács Z, Gáti T, Rácz A, Noszál B, Demeter A (2012) Solution-state NMR spectroscopy of famotidine revisited: spectral assignment, protonation sites, and their structural consequences. Anal Bioanal Chem 402:1653–1666
Acknowledgments
Cynthia K. Larive acknowledges support of this work by PomWonderful, LLC. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Dr. Dan Borchardt with the constant time HMBC experiment.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
ESM 1
(PDF 1.22 mb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kraszni, M., Marosi, A. & Larive, C.K. NMR assignments and the acid–base characterization of the pomegranate ellagitannin punicalagin in the acidic pH-range. Anal Bioanal Chem 405, 5807–5816 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-013-6987-x
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-013-6987-x