Document details

Retama sphaerocarpa: An unexploited and rich source of alkaloids, unsaturated fatty acids and other valuable phytochemicals

Author(s): Touati, Razika ; Santos, Sonia A. O. ; Rocha, Silvia M. ; Belhamel, Kamel ; Silvestre, Armando J. D.

Date: 2015

Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/19692

Origin: RIA - Repositório Institucional da Universidade de Aveiro

Subject(s): DIFFERENT MORPHOLOGICAL PARTS; LIPOPHILIC EXTRACTIVES; PERFORMANCE; FLAVONOIDS; MONOSPERMA; CYTISINE


Description

The chemical composition of the lipophilic extracts of the stems and grains of the shrub Retama sphaerocarpa was investigated by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry for the first time. Fatty acids is the major family of compounds in both morphological parts, representing between 37.1 and 85.1% of the total compounds detected, followed by sterols in stems and monoglycerides in grains. Considerable amounts of the alkaloids retamine (9.6 g kg(-1). of dry material) and cytisine (0.6 g kg(-1) of dry material) were also found in stems and grains, respectively. Before alkaline hydrolysis octadec-9-enoic (0.7-2.4 g kg(-1) of dry material), octadeca-9,12-dienoic (1.5-2.9 g kg(-1) of dry material) and hexadecanoic (1.1-2.0 g kg(-1) of dry material) acids are the most abundant lipophilic components in both morphological parts. After alkaline hydrolysis the contents of octade-9-enoic, octadeca-9,12-dienoic and octadeca-9,12,15-trienoic acids detected increased considerably ranging from 1.9 to 22.4, 3.6 to 40.1 and 0 to 8.6 g kg(-1) of dry material, respectively. Smaller amounts of long-chain aliphatic alcohols, alpha-tocopherol and beta-amyrin were also found. These data indicates that R. sphaerocarpa stems and grains are a potential source of valuable phytochemicals, with recognized nutritional and phytopharmaceutical applications. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Document Type Journal article
Language English
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