T. J. Mabry – författare

The flavonoids, one of the most numerous and widespread groups of natural constituents, are important to man not only because they contribute to plant colour but also because many members (e.g. coumestrol, phloridzin, rotenone) are physiologically active. Nearly two thousand substances have been described and as a group they are universally distributed among vascular plants. Although the anthocyanins have an undisputed function as plant pigments, the raison d'etre for the more widely distributed colourless flavones and flavonols still remains a mystery. It is perhaps the challenge of discovering these yet undisc10sed functions which has caused the considerable resurgence of interest in flavonoids during the last decade. This book attempts to summarize progress that has been made in the study of these constituents since the first comprehensive monograph on the chemistry of the flavonoid compounds was published, under the editorship of T. A. Geissman, in 1962. The present volume is divided into three parts. The first section (Chapters 1-4) deals with advances in chemistry, the main emphasis being on spectral techniques to take into account the re cent successful applications of NMR and mass spectral measurements to structural identifications. Recent developments in isolation techniques and in synthesis are also covered in this section. Advances in chemical knowledge of individual c1asses of flavonoid are mentioned inter aha in later chapters of the book.

The ftavonoid pigments, one of the most numerous and widespread groups of natural constituents, are ofimportance and interest to a wide variety ofphysical and biological scientists and work on their chemistry, occurrence, natural distribution and biological function continues unabated. In 1975, a mono graph covering their chemistry and biochemistry was published by Chapman and Hall under our editors hip entitled The Flavonoids. The considerable success of this publication indicated that it filled an important place in the scientific literature with its comprehensive coverage of these fascinating and versatile plant substances. The present volume is intended to update that earlier work and provide a detailed review of progress in the ftavonoid field during the years 1975 to 1980. Although cross references are made to The Flavonoids, this supplement is entirely self-contained and where necessary, tabular da ta from the earlier volume are incJuded and expanded here. The choice oftopics inRecent Advances has been dictated by the developments that have occurred in ftavonoid research since 1975, so that not all subjects covered in The Flavonoids are reviewed again here. A major advance in ftavonoid separation has been the app1ication ofhigh performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and this is reviewed inter alia in the opening chapter on separation techniques. An equally important development in the spectral analysis of ftavonoids has been the measurement of carbon-13 NMR spectra and this subject is authoritatively discussed in Chapter 2 and is also illustrated with the spectra of 125 representative ftavonoids.