Total Bioactive Compounds and Antimicrobial Capacities of Bee Pollen with Different Botanical Origins

Abstract

Bee pollen has many therapeutic properties with its rich chemical content. Especially the phenolic substances in the structure of bee pollen are very effective in showing the bioactive compounds. Thanks to these properties, bee pollen is used as a food supplement. It is known that these features are influenced by many factors such as climate, geography and plant origin. Therefore, it is important to determine the botanical origins of bee products. In this study, botanical origins and total bioactive compounds were determined at the seven bee pollen samples collected from different regions of Turkey. Also, antimicrobial activity of the seven bee pollen samples against seven different bacterial pathogens and one fungal agent using broth microdilution method were studied. Asteraceae, Fabaceae, Cistaceae, Papaveraceae families were found as a dominant in the regions by botanical origins examination. Total phenolic values were found between 24.77 ± 288.824 mg GAE/g and 51.61 ± 727.14 mg GAE/g. Total flavonoid content was 1.36 ± 0.015 mg QE/g and 2.40 ± 0.077 mg QE/g. The antimicrobial results showed that each of the tested bee pollen samples inhibited the growth of the gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria at the different levels while they did not have a complete inhibitory effect on the fungi.

Keywords

• bee pollen
• botanical origin
• total phenolic content
• total flavonoid content
• antimicrobial activity.