Abstract
Flavonoid is a class of major plant secondary metabolites with C6-C3-C6 skeleton derived from phenylpropanoid-acetate pathway. More than 6000 flavonoids are reported from various plants. Flavonoid serves as not only pigments but antioxidant, anti-inflammatory agents. Structural analysis is the key, because structural classification reveals, physico-chemical properties, modification patterns, biosynthetic pathways, and pathway evolution in plants. Structure-species information provides evolutionary relationships. In this context we developed hierarchically classified flavonoid structure database related with pathway chart. In the database, almost 6000 flavonoids are included and classified with 12 digit ID system by its core structure, hydroxylation patterns, and substitution patterns. We also developed viewer system to display structure-species relationship related with pathway chart. Software system is available at http://www.metabolome.jp/. We plan to add other phenylpropanoids and plant secondary metabolites to the viewer system in the future.
