Interaction of flavonoids with ascorbate and determination of their univalent redox potentials: A pulse radiolysis study

Concurrent pulse-radiolytic generation of flavonoid aroxyl radicals and ascorbyl radicals causes a complex kinetic interplay of competing and parallel reactions. Evaluation by “kinetic modelling” that is, taking into account all possible reactions by a set of differential equations, allowed us to determine equilibria constants for the univalent steps by a novel method. From these kinetic data we were able to calculate the redox potentials for dihydroquercetin, quercetin, rutin (a quercetin 3-glycoside), kaempferol, fisetin, and luteolin. Despite the limited number of substances, two structural criteria became apparent: all substances containing the B-ring catechol group and the 2,3-double bond have a higher redox potential than ascorbate and are consequently able to oxidize it to the ascorbyl radical. With fisetin and kaempferol having values very similar to ascorbate, only the flavanone dihydro-quercetin was capable of reducing the ascorbyl radical, thus fulfilling the so-called “ascorbate-protective” function, originally proposed by Szent-Györgyi. While flavonoids are effective radical scavengers, these rather high redox potentials for most flavonols may explain their occasional prooxidative behavior.