NMR spectroscopy: a valid tool in targeting bioactive molecules

NMR spectroscopy is a well establish analytical method in structural characterization of macromolecules. In these last years, NMR has been accepted as a preferential analytical method for mixture investigations, playing an important role in the "omics" technologies. Food matrices, as well as plant extracts and by-products, have been investigated, not only in metabolite fingerprinting approaches but also in sourcing for bioactive compounds1-5. The NMR approach takes the advantage of analyzing the metabolite content with a single experiment in a non-destructive way. Moreover, very simple or none sample preparation is required, thus making this technique very low demanding in terms of data acquisition and sample preparation. In plants, several studies are present concerning the metabolic investigations by NMR followed by the multivariate statistical analysis of data, allowing easier data interpretation, marker and/or new molecules discovery. Comparison of metabolite profile of treated or non-treated samples is also facilitated. In the present communication, the potentiality of the NMR approach will be presented with the aid of different practical examples.