Hydrosols from Rosmarinus officinalis, Salvia officinalis, and Cupressus sempervirens: Phytochemical Analysis and Bioactivity Evaluation.

Matteo Politi,Marinella De Leo,Alessandra Braca,Luigi Menghini,Beatrice Muscatello,Claudio Ferrante,Paola Angelini,Giancarlo Angeles Flores

doi:10.3390/plants11030349

Abstract

The present work evaluates the aromatic waters of rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus Spenn. syn. Rosmarinus officinalis L.), sage (Salvia officinalis L.), and cypress (Cupressus sempervirens L.) obtained as innovative commercial products of a hydrodistillation process. All extracts were exhaustively analysed by GC-MS, 1H-NMR, and LC-MS in order to evaluate potential metabolite fingerprint differences. GC-MS appears to be the most exhaustive technique for the qualitative identification of the single constituents, although in this case, the use of 1H-NMR and LC-MS techniques allowed some useful considerations in semi-quantitative terms. Antimycotic effects were studied against Tricophyton, Candida, and Arthroderma species, resulting in weak activity. The toxicological impact was partly evaluated in vitro by means of allelopathy and brine shrimp lethality. Cytotoxicity was investigated in human colon cancer cells (HCT116) and in hypothalamic cells (Hypo-E22) challenged with hydrogen peroxide. Sage and rosemary hydrosols were the most effective antimycotics, whereas all hydrosols displayed antiradical effects. Cytotoxic effects against HCT116 cells (at 500 µL/mL) were related in silico to the endovanilloid TRPM8 and TRPV1 receptors. At lower concentrations (5–50 µL/mL), the hydrosols protected hypothalamic neurons Hypo-E22 cells from hydrogen peroxide-induced toxicity. The overall experience indicates that hydrolates are an important source of relevant phytochemicals with significant pharmacological potential.

Highlights

Aromatic waters, known as hydrolates or hydrosols, are the aqueous phase obtained from the steam or hydrodistillation of different parts of aromatic plants, which separate from the essential oil phase at the end of the distillation process [1]
In this work, a full metabolomic platform based on GC-MS, LC-MS, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques for the analysis of the aromatic waters obtained by hydrodistillation of the flowering aerial parts of rosemary
Due to the low amount of literature data on the aromatic water from rosemary, sage, and cypress, the aim of the present work was to perform an in-depth phytochemical analysis based on headspace, solid phase microextraction coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS), ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to a high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HR-MS), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analyses

Summary

Introduction

Known as hydrolates or hydrosols, are the aqueous phase obtained from the steam or hydrodistillation of different parts of aromatic plants, which separate from the essential oil phase at the end of the distillation process [1]. In a comparison between 44 hydrolates with the corresponding essential oils, it was found that in 42% of the cases, the main components of essential oils and hydrolates were different [3] This trend was observed in other cases [4,5,6], indicating the relevance of testing the biological activities of this kind of undervalued natural extract [7], which have been recently proposed as the main products of aromatic plant distillation [8]. Rosmarinus officinalis L.) and sage (Salvia officinalis L.), as well as the cones of cypress (Cupressus sempervirens L.), was applied These plants are well-known botanical species of the Mediterranean flora, literature data on their aromatic waters are rather scarce

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