Abstract
Over the last few years, people have been concerned about the narrow relationship between nutrition and health leading to an increasing demand of nutraceutical products and functional food. Lemon verbena (Lippia citriodora Kunth) has been traditionally used for respiratory, digestive, and muscular diseases, showing effects that are promoted by the antioxidant activity of its phytoconstituents. The antioxidant power of several lemon verbena extracts has been tested but its isolated compounds activity has not been described. The aim of the present work was to isolate phytochemicals from a commercial lemon verbena extract through a semi-preparative high-performance liquid chromatography approach for further evaluation of its individual antioxidant activity using three different methods. The structure-antioxidant activity relationships revealed the influence of substitutions in the strong antioxidant power exerted by glycosylated phenylpropanoids, in contrast to the low antioxidant capacity showed by iridoids. Development of enriched extracts in these compounds could lead to greater antioxidant effects and improved functional ingredients to prevent chronic diseases.
Highlights
Combinatory chemistry has demonstrated to be insufficient for designing bioactive molecules and there is growing interest in discovering new compounds from natural sources
A commercial L. citriodora was characterized through mass spectrometry detection after
A total of 30 compounds were identified in a commercial lemon extract by high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC)-electrospray ionization (ESI)-TOF-mass spectrometry (MS) previous to its fractionation by semi-preparative chromatography
Summary
Combinatory chemistry has demonstrated to be insufficient for designing bioactive molecules and there is growing interest in discovering new compounds from natural sources. Plants have been used for centuries in traditional medicine, so they constitute a very attractive source for elucidating new structures that could interact with human biomolecules. One well-known medicinal plant is lemon verbena, with scientific names of Lippia citriodora (Kunth), Aloysia citriodora (Paláu), and Aloysia triphylla (L’Hérit). It belongs to the family Verbenaceae (Lamiales order) and is native from South America but is cultivated in southern Europe and northern Africa. Inca culture and there are reports of this specie from the 17th century [1]. Several studies have been reported its beneficial effects, including antimicrobial, neuroprotective, cardioprotective, anticonvulsant, Antioxidants 2019, 8, 324; doi:10.3390/antiox8080324 www.mdpi.com/journal/antioxidants
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