## 3 Results
### Chemical Composition of Methanolic Extracts after Derivatization  
Direct injection analyses of silylated extracts allowed the identification of thirty-five components, of which twenty-seven in IME and eighteen in LME belonged to different chemical class, including organic acids, sugars, sugar alcohols and others (Table 4). In detail, eight different acids were found in IME and three in LME. Among them, lactic acid (2.8%) was the most abundant in IME, while acrylic acid (2.1%) was the most abundant in LME. Lactic and acrylic were the only two acids common to the two extracts.  
Sugars represented the richest group of detected compounds. Fructofuranose (31.4% in IME; 31.9% in LME) was the one with the highest percentage values in both samples followed by glucopyranose (21.6%) and mannopyranose (15.3%) in IME and by tagtofuranose (18.6%) in LME.  
Among the sugar alcohols, glycerol (4.2%; 6.8%) and pinitol (0.9%; 13.9%) were the most abundant in IME and LME, respectively. Lastly, a significant amount of linolenic acid (4.6%) in IME sample was also measured.  
The chromatograms are shown in Figures S9 and S10.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline \(\mathbf{N}^{\circ}\) & **COMPONENT** & **LRI \({}^{\mathtt{calc}}\)** & **LRI \({}^{\mathtt{lit}}\)** & **IME** & **LME** \\ \hline  & & \multicolumn{4}{c}{ORGANIC ACIDS} \\ \hline
1 & lactic & 1050 & 1060 & 2.8 & 0.4 \\
2 & 4-hydroxymandelic & 1775 & 1782 & - & 0.3 \\
3 & 2-hydroxy-3- & & & \\  & methylvaleric & 1670 & 1680 \({}^{\$}\) & tr & - \\
4 & glycolic & 1986 & 1997 \({}^{\$}\) & 0.1 & - \\
5 & glyceric & 1355 & 1350 & 0.1 & - \\
6 & erythronic & 1572 & 1567 & 0.3 & - \\
7 & galacturonic & 2100 & 2096 & 0.2 & - \\
8 & quininic & 1862 & 1854 & 1.2 & - \\
9 & acrylic & 1110 & 1100 & 2.3 & 2.1 \\
10 & arabinonic & 1814 & 1812 & - & 0.6 \\ \hline  & & \multicolumn{4}{c}{SUGARS} \\ \hline
11 & lysozyme & 1600 & 1610 \({}^{\ast}\) & tr & 0.4 \\
12 & ribose & 1660 & 1669 \({}^{\ast}\) & tr & - \\
13 & xylose & 1710 & 1740 \({}^{\$}\) & tr & 0.2 \\
14 & rhamnose & 1630 & 1642 \({}^{\ast}\) & tr & - \\
15 & ribofuranose & 1625 & 1637 \({}^{\ast}\) & - & 1.2 \\
16 & fructofuranose & 1845 & 1857 \({}^{\ast}\) & 31.4 & 31.9 \\
17 & sorbofuranose & 1782 & 1779 & 9.3 & 3.2 \\
18 & tagatofuranose & 1807 & 1800 & - & 18.6 \\
19 & mannopyranose & 1785 & 1793 & 15.3 & - \\
20 & talopyranose & 1935 & 1943 \({}^{\ast}\) & 1.1 & - \\
21 & glucopyranose & 1841 & 1837 & 21.6 & - \\
22 & allofuranose & 1888 & 1896 \({}^{\ast}\) & 1.2 & - \\
23 & talofuranose & 1875 & 1882 & 0.3 & - \\
24 & galactopyranose & 1935 & 1952 \({}^{\$}\) & - & 0.4 \\
25 & methyl & 1820 & 1834 \({}^{\$}\) & - & 0.3 \\  & \(\beta\)-arabinofuranoside & & & & \\
26 & 2-O-glycerol-\(\alpha\)- & & & & \\  & galactopyranose & 2168 & 2180 \({}^{\$}\) & 0.4 & - \\ \hline  & & \multicolumn{4}{c}{SUGAR ALCOHOLS} \\ \hline
27 & glycerol & 1305 & 1300 & 4.2 & 6.8 \\
28 & ribitol & 1718 & 1727 & 0.1 & 0.3 \\
29 & arabitol & 1770 & 1776 & - & 1.7 \\
30 & pinitol & 1855 & 1869 \({}^{\ast}\) & 0.9 & 13.9 \\
31 & myo-inositol & 2090 & 2096 & 0.9 & 1.0 \\ \hline  & & \multicolumn{4}{c}{FATTY ACIDS} \\ \hline
32 & linolenic & 2212 & 2218 & 4.6 & - \\  & & \multicolumn{4}{c}{AMINOACIDS} \\ \hline
33 & valine & 1218 & 1221 & 0.1 & - \\ \hline  & & \multicolumn{4}{c}{OTHERS} \\ \hline
34 & phytol & 2155 & 2162 & 0.8 & - \\
35 & acetoacetic acid, ethyl ester & 938 & 944 & - & 11.9 \\ \hline \end{tabular}  
The flavonoids varied between 85.6 and 117.3 mg QE/g of extract (Table 6). In this case, the differences between the four samples were much smaller. The extract in which the flavonoids are most abundant is LME, followed by IAE, LAE and IME. It is worth noting that the extract showing the highest level of polyphenols was found to be the poorest in flavonoids. The results obtained by calculating the polyphenol and flavonoid content for the fresh parts of hops showed a lower amount of these secondary metabolites in the infloresances than in the leaves (Tables 5 and 6).