Isolation and identification of secondary metabolites from Plantago catharinea (Plantaginaceaee) leaves

Abstract

Species of plants containing bioactive substances are increasingly subject of research, leading to alternative therapeutic treatments or revealing substances that can be exploited to produce pharmaceuticals. Thus, phytochemical analysis are so much important, due to the large number of secondary metabolites that can be found. Plantago catharinea (Plantaginaceae) is from restinga ecosystems, specifically beaches and dunes. Coastal plants have high pharmaceutical potential, because it operate in an environment with poor nutrients due to saline soil and unstable, moreover, are exposed to high air temperatures and soil that lead to stress, interfering with the production of metabolites such as terpenoids, flavonoids and alkaloids. These constraints make the plants sandbank potential sources of substances for producing pharmaceuticals. Plantago catharinea is known by popular name of "Tanchagem" and has a similar morphology with species Plantago tomentosa and Plantago australis, which are also used in traditional medicine and known by the same popular name. Although P. catharinea be used as medicine, little is known about their chemical composition as well as its pharmacological activity, to prove its effectiveness. Thats a intense use as medicinal species "tanchagem" in Brazil (P. major, P. australis, P. lanceolata, P. ovata), proposes to the phytochemical study of P. catharinea, since it can be a potential source of biologically active metabolites, in addition to being a rare and endangered. For this, the study will be shared by two stages (I) Pharmacognostic step - drying, milling and standardization of plant material and (ii) chemical step - extraction, chromatographic screening, isolation and identification of metabolites. In this context, the results obtained with these experiments will contribute to the understanding of the chemical composition of the species, in addition facilitating studies with others of the same gender, which are being studied in parallel in the research project linked (proc # 2011/23113-0: Secretory structures of Plantago: Structural morphology chemistry - a compared leaf study). (AU)