Organo-specific distribution of untargeted metabolomics of mistletoe’s extract, Dendrophthoe pentandra (L.) Miq., from FKM UI, Kampus UI Depok

Abstract

Mistletoe, Dendrophthoe pentandra (L.) Miq., was reported to contain bioactive compound metabolites. Nevertheless, a study about organo-specific distribution of untargeted mistletoe’s metabolomics has never been done yet. This research aimed to investigate the distribution of bioactive compounds containing in leaves, stem, and flower extracts of mistletoe collected at Fakultas Kesehatan Masyarakat (FKM), Universitas Indonesia, Depok. The same weight of each sample was extracted with methanol to yield crude extracts. A 20 µ L of extracts of which each extract has the same concentration (6 mg/500 µ L) was injected using Dionex Ultimate 3000 UHPLC [Thermo Scientific] as autosampler injection. As the mobile phase, methanol and water eluent mixture was applied, meanwhile, as stationary phase, column C18 RP was used. HPLC chromatogram was then processed and interpreted by utilizing the Chromeleon 7.2 application. The output showed the flower organ had the highest yield of crude extract meanwhile the stem organ had the lowest yield of crude extract. The compounds with retention time (RT) of 10.4, 10.7, 11.0, and 17.9 were the only compounds that present in all D. pentandra’s organ. All compounds present in the flower extract could also be found in the leaf extract. Even though the stem extract had seven compounds (RT 2.5, 14.0, 16.0, 16.2, 16.5, 16.9, and 17.3) that were not found in either flower or leaf extract, but one compound found in the flower extract (RT 9.9) cannot be found in the stem extracts. The compounds with retention time (RT) of 10.4 constituted the major compounds in all extracts but different in concentration: both leaf and flower extract was higher than 3,500 mAU. Meanwhile, the stem extract was lower than 1,000 mAU. These results suggested that the flower of mistletoe’s extracts might function as a chemical defense that can protect it from herbivore predator. The antifeedant experiment should be conducted to test this assumption and further investigation for isolation and structure elucidation of the major compounds should be done to know the identity of those compounds.