No abstract

The fruit essential oils of Heracleum persicum, H. rechingeri, H. gorganicum, H. rawianum, H. pastinacifolium, and H. anisactis from Iran were obtained by hydrodistillation and characterized by GC-FID and GC/MS analyses. The oils of the six species were compared to determine the similarities and differences among their compositions. Overall, 36 compounds were identified in the fruit oils, accounting for 92.40-96.74% of the total oil compositions. Aliphatic esters constituted the main fraction of the oils (86.61-94.31%), with octyl acetate and hexyl butyrate as the major components. The oil compositions of species belonging to section Pubescentia (H. persicum, H. gorganicum, and H. rechingeri) were discriminated by equally high contents of both octyl acetate (13.84-20.48%) and hexyl butyrate (17.73-38.36%). On the other hand, the oils of H. rawianum, H. pastinacifolium and H. anisactis, belonging to section Wendia, showed lower hexyl butyrate contents (3.62-6.6%) and higher octyl acetate contents (48.71-75.36%) than the former. Moreover, isoelemicin was identified at low amounts (0.10-2.51%) only in the oils of the latter species. The differences in the oil composition among the six species were investigated by hierarchical cluster and principal component analyses, which indicated that the oil composition confirmed well the taxonomical classification based on the morphological and botanical data, and, thus, may provide a reliable marker to discriminate Heracleum species at the intersectional level.

Salvia L. is a large genus of the Lamiaceae family with high medicinal value. Pharmaceutical properties of Salvia species are mainly due to their secondary metabolites, especially phenolic compounds. This study was focused on identification and determination of five bioactive phenolic compounds (rosmarinic acid, carnosic acid, caffeic acid, salvianolic acids A and B) in the 41 populations from 27 wild Salvia species of Iran using a simple and reliable HPLC-UV method. The principal component analysis (PCA) technique was used to study differentiation among species according to their phenolic compound profiles. Significant intra-and interspecific variations were observed in the distribution patterns and contents of phenolic compounds in the studied Salvia species. As a result of this study, it was found that leaves had greater amounts of phenolic compounds as compared to the roots. The highest content of rosmarinic acid (41.53±0.88 mg/g DW) and salvianolic acid A (8.10±0.35 mg/g DW) were found in the leaves of S. verticillata. The leaves of S. syriaca and S. sharifii were rich in salvianolic acid B (54.47±2.00 mg/g DW) and carnosic acid (34.05±1.18 mg/g DW), respectively. The PCA results revealed chemical variations in the Salvia species collected from different regions and could fully distinguish between them based on the phenolic compounds concentrations. The present study demonstrated that apart from S. officinalis, some wild species such as S. verticillata, S. hypoleuca, S. leriifolia and S. virgata can be introduced as potent natural sources for medicinal and industrial purposes.

Partial fragments of phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) genes were cloned and characterized from Salvia officinalis (SoPAL) and Salvia virgata (SvPAL). Different concentrations (250 and 500 μM) of exogenous salicylic acid (SA) were used when correlation between PAL expression and rosmarinic acid (RA) accumulation was compared. The results showed that the deduced cDNA sequences of the partial genes had high similarities with those of known PAL gene from other plant species. Semi-quantitative reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) analysis revealed that exogenous application of SA led to up-regulating of the PAL expression. Further analysis showed that in S. virgata, at higher concentration of SA, higher accumulation of RA was achieved, while in S. officinalis, the higher RA accumulation was observed at lower concentration of SA. It was concluded that there was no positive correlation between the intensity of PAL transcription and the RA accumulation in the studied species. Therefore, despite of the increase in transcription rate of the PAL at the higher concentration of SA, the lower amounts of RA were accumulated in the case of S. officinalis. Consequently, the hypothesis that PAL is the rate-determining step in RA biosynthesis is not always valid and probably some other unknown factors participate in the synthesis of phenolics.