ABSTRACT
Studying bioavailability of polyphenols is essential to understand the health effects of these compounds. Human epithelial cells are commonly used in intestinal absorption and transport experiments but the changes polyphenols undergo during incubation, due to their chemical instability under the cell culture conditions, are scarcely known and might lead to inaccurate conclusions. Based on abundance of flavanols and hydroxycinnamic acids in the diet, epicatechin, epicatechin-3-gallate and procyanidin B2 as flavanols along with 5-caffeoylquinic and 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic acids as hydroxycinnamic acids were selected to comparatively evaluate their absorption and metabolism using an in vitro Caco-2 cell model. Special emphasis was paid to the structure-stability relationship of these phenolic compounds in Dulbecco's Modified Eagle's Medium (DMEM) under the cell culture conditions. The tested compounds were scarcely absorbed and minimally metabolized by the intestinal epithelium cells. The cell transport study showed prevalent efflux for flavanols opposite to absorption for hydroxycinnamates. Intestinal metabolism revealed that hydroxycinnamates were preferentially hydrolyzed and subsequently methylated, whereas hydrolysis of flavanols could not be confirmed, being mostly conjugated to sulfate, methyl- and methyl-sulfate derivatives. It is noteworthy that methyl derivatives of procyanidin-B2 were detected inside Caco-2 cells, confirming its absorption. In addition, culture medium influenced phenol isomerization to a higher extent than cells. In conclusion, hydroxycinnamates were better absorbed than flavanols although their bioavailability was limited in this intestinal cell model.