Nutrients and Main Secondary Metabolites Characterizing Extracts and Essential Oil from Fruits of <i>Ammodaucus leucotrichus</i> Coss. & Dur. (Western Sahara)

oleh: Mohamed Lamin Abdi Bellau, Matteo Andrea Chiurato, Annalisa Maietti, Giancarlo Fantin, Paola Tedeschi, Nicola Marchetti, Massimo Tacchini, Gianni Sacchetti, Alessandra Guerrini

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2022-08-01

Deskripsi

The ethnobotany of the Sahrawi people considers various species of plants and crude drugs as food, cooking spices and traditional health remedies. From among these, the fruits of <i>Ammodaucus leucotrichus</i> Coss. & Dur. (Apiaceae), known as Saharan cumin, were chosen for our research. The present paper reports a proximate composition and mineral element analysis of various samples of <i>A. leucotrichus</i> fruits, collected during the balsamic period (full fruiting) from plants grown in Bir Lehlu (Western Sahara) and purchased in a local market (Tindouf). These analyses pointed out interesting nutritional values of the crude drug. Decoction and alcoholic extract, analyzed by HPLC-DAD, evidenced ammolactone-A and R-perillaldehyde as the two main isolated constituents, particularly in the ethanolic extracts (ammolactone-A, market sample: 51.71 ± 0.39 mg/g dry extract; wild sample: 111.60 ± 1.80 mg/g dry extract; R-perillaldehyde, market sample: 145.95 ± 0.35 mg/g dry extract; wild sample: 221.40 ± 0.30 mg/g dry extract). The essential oils, obtained through hydrodistillation, were characterized by GC-MS and evidenced R-perillaldehyde (market sample: 53.21 ± 1.52%; wild sample: 74.01 ± 1.75%) and limonene (market sample: 35.15 ± 1.68%; wild sample: 19.90 ± 1.86%) as the most abundant compounds. The R configuration of perillaldehyde was ascertained and a complete description of the <sup>1</sup>H and <sup>13</sup>C NMR spectra of ammolactone-A was performed.