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Review
. 2021 Jan 28;10(2):188.
doi: 10.3390/antiox10020188.

The Interactions between Polyphenols and Microorganisms, Especially Gut Microbiota

Małgorzata Makarewicz  1 , Iwona Drożdż  1 , Tomasz Tarko  1 , Aleksandra Duda-Chodak  1
Affiliations
Review

The Interactions between Polyphenols and Microorganisms, Especially Gut Microbiota

Małgorzata Makarewicz et al. Antioxidants (Basel). .

Abstract

This review presents the comprehensive knowledge about the bidirectional relationship between polyphenols and the gut microbiome. The first part is related to polyphenols' impacts on various microorganisms, especially bacteria, and their influence on intestinal pathogens. The research data on the mechanisms of polyphenol action were collected together and organized. The impact of various polyphenols groups on intestinal bacteria both on the whole "microbiota" and on particular species, including probiotics, are presented. Moreover, the impact of polyphenols present in food (bound to the matrix) was compared with the purified polyphenols (such as in dietary supplements) as well as polyphenols in the form of derivatives (such as glycosides) with those in the form of aglycones. The second part of the paper discusses in detail the mechanisms (pathways) and the role of bacterial biotransformation of the most important groups of polyphenols, including the production of bioactive metabolites with a significant impact on the human organism (both positive and negative).

Keywords: bioactive compounds; biotransformation; catabolism; diversity; health; inhibition; intestinal microbiota; metabolism; metabolites.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The chemical structure of various classes of flavonoids. Based on [16,24,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40].
Figure 1
Figure 1
The chemical structure of various classes of flavonoids. Based on [16,24,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40].
Figure 1
Figure 1
The chemical structure of various classes of flavonoids. Based on [16,24,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40].
Figure 1
Figure 1
The chemical structure of various classes of flavonoids. Based on [16,24,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40].
Figure 1
Figure 1
The chemical structure of various classes of flavonoids. Based on [16,24,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40].
Figure 1
Figure 1
The chemical structure of various classes of flavonoids. Based on [16,24,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40].
Figure 2
Figure 2
The chemical structure of various groups of non-flavonoid polyphenols. Based on [16,24,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40].
Figure 2
Figure 2
The chemical structure of various groups of non-flavonoid polyphenols. Based on [16,24,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40].
Figure 2
Figure 2
The chemical structure of various groups of non-flavonoid polyphenols. Based on [16,24,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40].
Figure 2
Figure 2
The chemical structure of various groups of non-flavonoid polyphenols. Based on [16,24,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Expected octahedral coordination geometry of general iron-polyphenol complexes, (a) gallol, (b) catechols. Coordination requires deprotonation of the polyphenol ligands. Based on [201].
Figure 4
Figure 4
Possible pathways of microbial metabolism of daidzin and daidzein. Based on [236,237,238,239,240,241,242,243]. The dashed arrows indicate hypothesized reactions of microbiological degradation that were observed in vitro but were not reported in vivo.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Possible pathways of microbial metabolism of genistin and genistein. Based on [236,237,238,239,240,241,242,243]. The dashed arrows indicate hypothesized pathways of microbiological degradation that were observed in vitro but were not reported in vivo.
Figure 6
Figure 6
The pathways of bacterial metabolism of glycitin. Based on [237,242].
Figure 7
Figure 7
The human metabolism of formononetin and biochanin A. Based on [16,255,256].
Figure 8
Figure 8
Lignans metabolism by gut microbiota. Based on [12,237,258,259,260,261]. The dashed arrows indicate hypothesized or multistep process.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Degradation of ellagitannins to ellagic acid. Based on [268].
Figure 10
Figure 10
The bacterial metabolism of ellagic acid to urolithins and derivatives. The red arrows represent the pathways reported in Gordonibacter urolithinfaciens and G. pamelaeae. Based on [272,273,274].
Figure 11
Figure 11
Bacterial biotransformation of prenylflavonoids xanthohumol and isoxanthohumol. Based on [275,276,279].
Figure 12
Figure 12
Anthocyanins equilibria [39].
Figure 13
Figure 13
Main steps of anthocyanin degradation. Based on [274,282].
Figure 14
Figure 14
Biodegradation of anthocyanins and their main metabolites: cyanidin → 3,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid (protocatechuic acid), peonidin → 3-methoxy-4-hydroxybenzoic acid (vanillic acid) and pelargonidin → 4-hydroxybenzoic acid. Based on [282,284,287,288].
Figure 15
Figure 15
Biodegradation of malvidin, delphinidin and petunidin by intestinal bacteria. Based on [285,290,292].
Figure 16
Figure 16
Microbial metabolism of procyanidin B2, (−)-epicatechin and (+)-catechin. Based on [274,291,294,295,296,297].
Figure 17
Figure 17
Possible pathways of the transformation of flavones and flavonols due to metabolism by intestinal bacteria. Based on [239,301,304,309,310].
Figure 18
Figure 18
Pathways of some phenolic acid metabolism conducted by various bacteria. Based on [37,304,312,313,314,315].
Figure 19
Figure 19
The effect of bacterial metabolism on resveratrol, oxyresveratrol, thunalbene and piceatannol. Based on [320,324].
Figure 20
Figure 20
Metabolic pathway of curcumin. Reactions conducted by E. coli CurA and Blautia sp. are indicated. Based on [274,325,326,328,329,330].
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