Faecal microbial metabolism of olive oil phenolic compounds: in-vitro and in-vivo approaches

Abstract

In the present study, the individual colonic metabolism of the main components of the virgin olive oil phenolic fraction was evaluated by an in vitro model using human faecal microbiota. To assess differences in metabolism related to the molecular structure, four phenolic standards were selected, tyrosol, hydroxytyrosol, hydroxytyrosol acetate and oleuropein. After studying the in vitro colonic metabolism pathways of the individual phenols, the presence of their colonic metabolites was investigated in human faecal samples obtained before and after the sustained intake (3 weeks) of a daily dose of 25 mL of a phenol-enriched olive oil.

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) (AGL2009–13517-C03, AGL2012–40144-C03–03, AGL2012–40144-C03–02 and AGL2012–40144-C03–01 projects); Spanish Ministry of Health (FIS-FEDER; PI021307), CIBERDEM and CIBEROBN (CB06/03); Health Institute of Carlos III (Sara Borrell CD10/00224); Generalitat de Catalunya through the J. Mosele grant, and the FPI contract (BES-2010–040766) through the M Farràs grant in the context of Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) Ph.D. Program in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biomedicine.