Schisandra rubriflora Plant Material and In Vitro Microshoot Cultures as Rich Sources of Natural Phenolic Antioxidants.

Agnieszka Szopa,Michał Dziurka,Marta Klimek-Szczykutowicz,Paweł Kubica,Angelika Warzecha,Karolina Jafernik,Sebastian Granica,Halina Ekiert

doi:10.3390/antiox9060488

Abstract

Schisandra rubriflora is a dioecious, underestimated medicinal plant species known from traditional Chinese medicine. The present study was aimed at characterising the polyphenolic profile composition and the related antioxidant capacity of S. rubriflora fruit, stem and leaf and in vitro microshoot culture extracts. Separate analyses of material from female and male specimens were carried out. This study was specifically aimed at detailed characterisation of the contribution of phenolic compounds to overall antioxidant activity using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography with a photodiode array detector coupled to electrospray ionization ion trap mass spectrometry (UHPLC-DAD-ESI-MS3) and a high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector (HPLC-DAD). Using UHPLC-DAD-ESI-MS3, twenty-seven phenolic compounds from among phenolic acids and flavonoids were identified. Concentrations of three phenolic acids (neochlorogenic, chlorogenic and cryptochlorogenic acids) and eight flavonoids (hyperoside, rutoside, isoquercitrin, guaijaverin, trifolin, quercetin, kaempferol, and isorhamnetin) were determined using HPLC-DAD using reference standards. The highest total phenolic content was confirmed for the stem and leaf extracts collected in spring. The contents of phenolic compounds of in vitro biomasses were comparable to that in the fruit extracts. The methanolic extracts from the studied plant materials were evaluated for their antioxidant properties using various in vitro assays, namely free radicals scavenging estimation using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl-hydrate (DPPH), ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and cupric-reducing antioxidant capacity (CUPRAC) as well as QUick, Easy, New, CHEap, and Reproducible CUPRAC (QUENCHER-CUPRAC) assays. A close relationship between the content of polyphenolic compounds in S. rubriflora and their antioxidant potential has been documented.

Highlights

The attention of scientific research has been focused on plants as a source of phytochemicals with antioxidant potential
The morphological differences in the appearance of microshoot cultures of F and M culture lines grown on MS medium variant with 1 mg/L BA and 1 mg/L indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) were not measurable (Figure 1)
The contents of the main compounds have been determined for the first time using HPLC-DAD

Summary

Introduction

The attention of scientific research has been focused on plants as a source of phytochemicals with antioxidant potential. Different groups of plant secondary metabolites have. Antioxidants 2020, 9, 488 been identified as responsible for this activity. These natural compounds comprise different structures and involve several protective mechanisms. Plant secondary metabolites most likely to exhibit health-promoting effects include polyphenols such as flavonoids, phenolic acids, catechins, tannins, and proanthocyanidins [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The latest studies of plant biotechnology proved that different in vitro systems of various plant species could be a rich, alternative source of polyphenolic compounds of strong antioxidant power, even higher than that of the intact plants [9,10,11]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion