Metabolic differentiations of dwarf elder by NMR-based metabolomics

Abstract

Sambucus plants have prominent place in folk medicine of the people from Europe and the Middle East. Sambucus ebulus (both above and under ground parts) preparations showed anti-neoplastic, antimicrobial (incl. antiviral) and anti-inflammatory properties. Elderberries accumulate sugars and fibers, vitamins and minerals, besides abundant secondary metabolites, as flavonoids, anthocyanins, phytosterols, triterpenes and iridoid glycosides, among others. Sambucus plants, however, also accumulate cyanogenic glycosides, whose presence is undesirable. Despite many applications so far the knowledge of the metabolites, accumulated in Sambucus species, is still limited and based mainly on determination of the major compounds. Here we report the application of 1H NMR metabolic fingerprinting in combination with principal component and hierarchical clustering analyses to reveal the metabolic differences of Sambucus mature and immature fruits, and plant leaves. Moreover, we show that immature fruits and leaves of S. ebulus have similar metabolome, which apparently undergoes significant changes during the fruit ripening stage. Sambunigrin was not detectable in any sample. To the best of our knowledge this is the first report on the systematic analysis of S. ebulus metabolome.