Monofloral pollens: Chemical analysis and quality control

Monofloral pollens may have nutritional and medicinal potential, either by themselves or by their function of substrate for probiotic bacterias. Relationships between pollens chemical composition and their use by the bees has not been studied. Pollens are poorly studied in terms of chemical composition, and are subject to great variability. Chemical profiling and fingerprinting is necessary to allow the elaboration of identity checking, quality control and metabonomics. LC-HRMS analysis from methanolic extracts of pollens of Castanea sativa, Rubus fruticosus and Cistus spp. show different specific patterns. Major flavonoids have been identified in each species. An alternative, original method using phenolic acids sublimation has also been used as a complementary method to assess pollen chemical composition.