I want to carry out quantification of phenols in tomato with respect to foliar pathogen. Please suggest the best extraction protocols and important suggestions while doing it because I never did this before?
lots of method available for phenol detection.. if you want to analyze total phenol content you can go with the method (folin ciocalteau method) described by sadasivam and manickam book or else.
If you quantify individual phenol content you can for for extraction with 2.5 N HCl and further u can run on HPLC or HPTLC.(the method is also available on internet)
In order to extract phenolics from tomato, I suggest to go for microwave assisted extraction. Tomatoes are rich source of lycopenes and phenolics. Based on the polarity of lycopene and major phenloics present in tomatoes, made an appropriate choice for selection of appropriate solvent.
Once you have your extract in hand, test it for in-vitro antioxidant activity by different assays such as DPPH, ABTS, Photochemiluminiscent based assays, FRAP etc. You can also analyze the extracts for lycopene quantification and phenolic profiling by HPLC/LC-MS.