Natively fluorescent isoflavones exhibiting anomalous Stokes' shifts

The fluorescence behaviour of 19 flavonoids was studied. Three isoflavones (formononetin (F), ononin (FG) and daidzein (D)) were found to exhibit large Stokes' shifts, possibly due to a change of the structure of the molecule from non-planar in the S-0 state to planar in the S-1 state. Lifetime measurements were carried out using time-correlated single photon counting spectroscopy to further characterise the mechanism. These large shifts provide a high selectivity, so that fluorescent isoflavones can be readily detected in plant samples by means of reversed-phase LC with fluorescence detection. Attention has to be paid to possibly fluorescent impurities in flavonoid standards, as was observed for daidzin (DG), which is not fluorescent itself, but has a fluorescent isomer. To distinguish between the two compounds, LC with fluorescence and MS detection was used to separate and identify the impurity. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.