Halk İlacı Olarak Kullanılan Peganum harmala L. (Üzerlik) Tohumları Üzerinde İlaç Hammaddesi Yönünden Araştırmalar

Abstract

Peganum harmala L., which is the only species representing the genus Peganum in Turkey, is known as “üzerlik” and is widely used as folk medicine. It is known that pharmacological studies performed on the plant support some ethnobotanical usage of P. harmala such as antiinflammatory, antibacterial and analgesic. In this study methanolic extract obtained from the seeds of the plant was fractionated with increasing polarity of the solvents, also separated as alkaloids and the other compounds by acid-base extraction method. Isolation, structure elucidation, HPLC analysis and biological activity studies were conducted on the fractions obtained and the extract. Isolated alkaloids were identified as harmine, harmaline, harmalol, vasicinone, deoxyvasicinone and pegaline. On the other hand, two compounds bearing a flavon skeleton (diosmetin or acacetin) and four sugar moieties, were obtained from the seeds. While isolation of diosmetin-7-O-β-D-glucopyranosyl(1→2)-β-D-glucopyranosyl-(1→2)-[α-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1→6)]-β-D-glucopyranoside molecule from P. harmala species was the first, flavonoside elucidated as acacetin-7-O-β-D-glucopyranosyl(1→2)-β-D-glucopyranosyl(1→2)-[α-L-rhamnopyranosyl(1→6)]-β-D-glucopyranoside was isolated from the genus Peganum firstly with this study. Moreover, it was established that these compounds were obtained from the nature for the second time. Antioxidant effects of the extract and main fractions were evaluated by TEAC, CUPRAC and DPPH method, the highest antioxidant activity was seen in the alkaloid fraction-1 (IC50 76,06 µg/ml) for TEAC assay and in the ethyl acetate fraction (IC50 61,62 and 110 µg/ml) for CUPRAC and DPPH assays. Cytotoxic activity studies were performed in L929 and HeLa cell lines by MTT method, prominent cytotoxic activity of alkaloid fractions, ethyl acetate fraction and n-butanol fraction with the extract were demonstrated. In addition, qualitative and quantitative analysis were carried out according to the validated HPLC method in the study thus, the matter about the biological activities based on which compounds was investigated.