Partial Purification and Substrate Specifity of a β-Glucosidase fromChamomilla recutita

Abstract

As there are no data about the chemical composition of this species in Yugoslavia, three populations were taken under examination, of which two were collected from the Vardar area (South Macedonia) and one from the Sava area (North Serbia). Plant material was taxonomically determined by H. Janèid, and samples are deposited in the Herbarium of the Department of Botany, Pharmaceutical Faculty, University of Belgrade. Essential oils were obtained by steam distillation and analyzed by the GC-MS, using a fused silica column, packed with 0.25ym BPI, 15m x 2mm, and temperature programed from 40°C up to 240°C (4 °C/min). Identificaton of each individual compound was made by comparison of their retention times with those of authentic samples and by computer searching, matching mass spectral data with those held in the computer library. The obtained results are presented in Table 1. The examined populations showed a great variability in essential oil composition. Unexpected differences were found between populations A and B, collected from the neighbouring areas. Population A can he classified into the carvone-dihydrocarvone chemotypes, reported previously by Kokkini et al. (3), while population B with high content of menthone-isomenthone cannot be fitted into any of the reported chemotypes, as well as population C with high content of menthofuran and considerable amounts of sesquiterpenes (1, 2). The present results suggest a great interspecies variability in the essential oils of Mentha species, in particular, Men thu longzfolia L., growing in Yugoslavia.

The optimization of the extraction process of flavonoids from fermented chamomile ligulate flowers

“…Apigenin accumulates in white ligulate flowers of the chamomile anthodium in a bound form as apigenin 7-Oglucoside (Ap-7-Glc) and various acylated derivatives [17]. There are many reports showing that hydrolysis of Ap-7-Glc (the main glucoside in chamomile) into apigenin could be done prior extraction [18][19][20]. The fermentation process activates β-glucosidase, normally present in CLF.…”