BIOACTIVE EDIBLE OILS PROBED BY NEUTRON SPECTROSCOPY

Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) contains numerous phenolic components with well recognised health-beneficial properties, namely high antioxidant capacity. These characteristics depend on their structural/conformational behaviour, which are greatly determined by intra- and intermolecular H-bond interactions. With a view to understand the biological activity of these dietary compounds, for a rational and conscious consumption aiming at improving public health, the present experiment probes some of the main phenolic constituents of EVOO by inelastic neutron scattering spectroscopy at TOSCA.The results thus obtained will hopefully allow us to better understand the structure-activity relationships (SARs) underlying the beneficial activity of EVOO components.

特级初榨橄榄油（Extra virgin olive oil, EVOO）含有多种酚类成分，这些成分具有公认的健康益处，即高抗氧化能力。这些特性取决于其结构/构象行为，而后者很大程度上由分子内和分子间氢键相互作用决定。为理解这些膳食化合物的生物活性，进而实现旨在改善公众健康的合理且有意识的消费，本实验通过TOSCA装置的非弹性中子散射光谱（inelastic neutron scattering spectroscopy）探究了EVOO的部分主要酚类成分。由此获得的结果有望帮助我们更好地理解EVOO成分有益活性背后的构效关系（structure-activity relationships, SARs）。