Evaluation of antibacterial and antioxidant activities of fermented bee pollen from different Europe regions using chemometric analysis methods

Abstract

Bee pollen is one of the most appreciated natural products, which chemical composition represents a source of biologically active substances [1]. The aim of this research was to determine the effect of fermentation process of bee pollen from different Europe regions on its antioxidant and antibacterial activity by chemometric analysis methods. Also an impact of fermented bee pollen to antibiotic activity was evaluated. Previous studies show that solid-state fermentation has positive impact on antioxidant and antibacterial activities [2]. To our knowledge, this is the first study about the evaluation of antibacterial and antioxidant activities of fermented bee pollen from different Europe regions and also the first research about synergistic effect of fermented bee pollen. Nine samples of bee pollen from Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Lithuania, Denmark, Malta and Slovakia were fermented using optimized fermentation conditions with L. rhamnosus bacteria for 8 days. For comparison purposes, spontaneous fermentation was applied on bee pollen samples for 12 days. Synergistic effect was evaluated using penicillin, gentamycin, ciprofloxacin, oxytetracycline, ceftazidime and erythromycin. It was noticed that, antibacterial and antioxidant activities increased after fermentation. Hierarchical clustering analysis and principal component analysis were applied to help grouping of bee pollen from different Europe regions based on their different antioxidant and antibacterial activities. The study revealed that both antibacterial and antioxidant activities, and impact to antibiotic activity were strongly related with geographic origin of bee pollen.