Phytochemical investigations on Artemisia alba Turra growing in the North-East of Italy

Gregorio Peron,Valeria Baldan,Stefania Sut,Marta Faggian,Lorenzo Roccabruna,Daniele Zanini,Paolo Manzini,Filippo Maggi,Stefano Dall’Acqua

doi:10.1080/14786419.2016.1263845

Gregorio Peron, Valeria Baldan + Show 7 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/14786419.2016.1263845

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Abstract

Artemisia alba Turra (Asteraceae) is an Euro-Mediterranean plant used in Veneto (North-East of Italy) as traditional medicine for the treatment of various diseases. A. alba is a taxonomically problematic species, characterised by common polymorphism leading to a quite high variability in secondary metabolites content. Nonetheless, the phytochemical knowledge on its phytoconstituents, especially non-volatile components, is limited. In the present paper, the phytochemical composition of a tincture obtained from the aerial parts of A. alba growing in Veneto is presented. Extensive chromatographic separations led to the isolation of three new sesquiterpene derivatives, whose structures were elucidated by 1D and 2D NMR experiments and mass spectrometry. Furthermore, flavonoid composition and volatile constituents of the tincture of A. alba were preliminary studied by HPLC–MSn and GC–MS, respectively.

Highlights

The genus Artemisia (Asteraceae) consists of about 500 species and subspecies mainly distributed in the temperate zones of North America, Europe and Asia (Tan et al 1998)
In the attempt to provide new insights into the chemical polymorphism of the complex A. alba group, in this paper we report the phytochemical investigation of A. alba collected in Monte Baldo (North-East Italy)
The relative orientation of 8-OH group was assigned on the basis of the NOESY correlations observed from from H-8 and and isopropyl signals H-12 and 13

Summary

Introduction

The genus Artemisia (Asteraceae) consists of about 500 species and subspecies mainly distributed in the temperate zones of North America, Europe and Asia (Tan et al 1998). In the subclass Asteridae of Dicotyledones, Artemisia is considered one of the most evoluted genera in higher plants This is reflected by the great morphological polymorphism and by the diversity in secondary metabolites content of its members. A. alba shows an important variability in morphology of the leaves, type and distribution of glandular trichomes, odour and habitat (Peruzzi et al 2005). For these reasons, the A. alba group is considered as an example of problematic taxon (Tutin 1976; Pignatti 1982). Alcoholic tincture of A. alba was analysed for composition in flavonoids and volatile constituents by HPLC–MSn and GC–MS, respectively

Structural elucidation of new constituents

HPLC–MSn analysis of ethanolic extract from plant aerial parts

Volatile constituents of the tincture

Conclusions