Abstract
Piper mikanianum from Santa Catarina, southern Brazil, is a well known source of safrole, an arylpropanoid precursor of several bioactive molecules. This work determined the seasonal and hydrodistillation time influence on the essential oil (EO) yield and composition. Dehydrated leaves were hydrodistilled with and without fractioning during a total period of 240 min. The EO yields varied from 0.66-0.84% with the highest values been observed during spring and summer seasons. The highest concentration of safrole was found in the winter oil (81%). In the fractioning experiments the concentration of safrole varied from 75-80% in F1 (oil distilled during 60 min) and 42-64% in F2 (oil distilled between 60-240 min).
Highlights
The synthesis and storage of secondary metabolites are energetically expensive and several biotic and abiotic factors can interfere in the metabolism of a plant throughout its life cycle [1].The seasonality is a factor that leads to alteration of biosynthetic pathways, which changes the content of practically all classes of secondary metabolites, including essential oils [1,2].Piperaceae have been widely studied and distinguished by high chemical diversity and remarkable biological activity [3]
This result was higher than the ones from Rorig & Von Poser [11] who obtained only 0.25% yield of fresh leaves collected in summer, being lower than the results by Leal et al [13] which yielded 3.1% for fresh leaves collected in the summer
The fruiting period of the P. mikanianum is during the summer and this study found that this time the leaves showed levels of monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes similar, and the second highest level of safrole
Summary
The synthesis and storage of secondary metabolites are energetically expensive and several biotic and abiotic factors can interfere in the metabolism of a plant throughout its life cycle [1]. Derived from safrole, was synthesized (+)-epiasarinin, an aryl furofuran associated with several biological properties, including antioxidant, anticancer, antiviral and immunosuppressive [17] and chalcones protease cruzain inhibitors, targeting the synthesis of new trypanocidal agents [18]. Given the economic potential associated with P. mikanianum it becomes a priority to produce effective knowledge which would provide economic and ecological subsides for the adoption of better management strategies of this species [20]. This is the aim of the current study when it evaluate the influence of seasonality and the time of hydrodistillation on the yield and chemical composition of the essential oils of P. mikanianum from Santa Catarina
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