CELL-WALL ESTERIFIED PHENOLIC DIMERS - IDENTIFICATION AND QUANTIFICATION BY REVERSE-PHASE HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY AND DIODE-ARRAY DETECTION

An optimized high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) procedure h as been developed for the analysis and quantification of all of the kn own ferulic acid dehydrodimers, and the principle phenolic aldehydes a nd acids, found in the cell walls of higher plants. The HPLC system us es an ODS2 reverse phase column (5 mu m particle size) eluted with a m ethanol, acetonitrile and water gradient with detection at 280 nm. In addition to providing baseline resolution of most components, the meth od employs a spectrometric detector which enables the precise identifi cation of eluted components through the analysis of their spectral pro perties, Analysis of the cell wall phenolics of wheat straw stem (Trit icum vulgare) was carried out using this method which is highly versat ile and, for certain components, more sensitive than the current gas c hromatography-mass spectrometry methodology.