Researchers make new discovery on the molecular structure of natural products

Researchers at the Institute of Molecular Sciences (ICMol) of the University of Valencia have succeeded in synthesising a new porous material that encapsulates a series of active ingredients of natural substances and determines their chemical structure using X-ray diffraction. This will make it possible in the future to characterise natural products, hitherto unknown, and to reveal their chemical properties. This work was published in Nature Communications.

Natural products - substances produced by living organisms in nature - are frequently used in important and everyday areas such as food, medicine or cosmetics. However, the structure and chemical nature of many of them remain unknown, limiting the growth of these applications. This lack of characterization is due to the fact that the low degree of crystallinity of many natural products prevents the use of X-ray diffraction techniques to resolve their structure.

The ICMol team led by researcher Emilio Pardo has shown that natural products can be analyzed by crystallographic techniques, if this is done using the porous material called MOF (metal-organic framework), whose functionality, porosity control and high crystallinity allow the encapsulation and arrangement of this type of substances within its pores. This will allow the structure of many natural products to be revealed, new properties to be discovered and their applicability to be improved.

The work published in Nature Communications focuses on the encapsulation and structural resolution of a flavonoid present in citrus fruits - from the Citrus bergamia tree - whose curative, anxiolytic, antipyretic and cholesterol-lowering effects, among others, are used in medicine, in addition to its use as an essence in perfumes. The results obtained confirmed its structure and unambiguously determined its chirality, i.e. its absolute configuration.

This work has paved the way for the study of the properties of many other natural products, as well as establishing their health and nutritional benefits in a more categorical and well-founded manner.