Phytochemical studies and biological activity of carnivorous plants from the Mediterranean region

Tese de doutoramento, Ciências Biotecnológicas (Biotecnologia Vegetal), Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade do Algarve, 2010

In this thesis several studies were conducted with four carnivorous plant species which occur on Portuguese territory: Pinguicula lusitanica, Pinguicula vulgaris, Drosera intermedia and Drosera rotundifolia. Most habitats of these plants are threatened and natural populations are scarce, therefore micropropagation protocols were developed to produce biomass for the subsequent studies. Efficient micropropagation protocols were developed for P. lusitanica and D. intermedia enabling large scale biomass production, while protocols for the other two species have still to be optimized (in Chapter 2). The in vitro established cultures represent active germplasm collections of Portuguese natural populations and contribute therefore for their conservation. In Chapter 3 extracts prepared from micropropagated plant material were analyzed using state of the art HPLC-ESI-MS and HPLC-SPE-NMR equipment which enabled the identification of the major secondary metabolites produced by P. lusitanica and D. intermedia, directly from essentially crude extracts. The metabolites identified in P. lusitanica belong to the iridoid glucosides and caffeoyl phenylethanoid glycosides and D. intermedia was shown to produce mainly flavonoid glucosides, ellagic acid derivatives and the naphthoquinone plumbagin. The evaluation of the biological activities of these extracts, compiled in Chapter 4, showed that the methanol extract of P. lusitanica has considerable antioxidant activity and that the n-hexane extract of D. intermedia has high antimicrobial potential. In Chapter 5 a method for the extraction of plumbagin from micropropagated D. intermedia plants was optimized and its potential as an alternative for bioprospection evaluated. It was shown that the commercial exploitation of plumbagin from D. intermedia cultures might be viable and that UAE with n-hexane followed by an SPE purification step is an efficient procedure for obtaining large quantities of high purity plumbagin. It is hoped that this study represents an enrichment of the knowledge on these plants and contributes to their conservation and valorisation.