Phenolic Acids in Pollen

Determination of phenolic composition of pollen has been one of the most popular topics over the past decade. Although most research studies focused on bee-collected pollen samples, it was also observed that phenolics, in particular, phenolic acids, are very important as protecting compounds in floral pollen grain, attached to sporopollenin. Based on the collected data a pronounced diversity of phenolic acids and derivatives was observed in pollen samples with different botanical/geographical origin. In total, 23 phenolic acids were identified/quantified in the samples with great predominance of the following ones: caffeic acid (0.04–450 μg/g), ferulic acid (0.27–450 μg/g) and p-coumaric acid (0.14–410 μg/g). However, the highest content was observed for vanillic acid (4985.5 μg/g) in the rape bee-collected pollen (China). In addition, several different derivatives, such as ethers, esters or amides, were also identified in pollen.