Study of flavonoid compounds in Scutellaria multicaulis, S. nepetifolia, S. patonii and S. condensata from Zagros, Iran

The genus Scutellaria L. belonging to Lamiaceae family and Scutellarioideae sub-family has 425 species throughout the world and 22 species in Iran from which 10 species are endemic. Scutellaria species are considered as medicinal plants containing significant chemical compounds. The aim of this research is to determine the flavonoid constituents in species such as S. multicaulis Boiss. S. nepetifolia Benth., S. patonii Jamzad & Safikhani and S. condensata Rech. f. in the south-west, center, and west of Zagros. Consequently, the flavonoid solution of air-dried leaves from each Scutellaria species was extracted using crude 85% MeOH. The purified flavonoid was analyzed using Liquid chromatography-mass spectrophotometry (LC-MS/MS) on a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer. It is noted that the MS2 detection of this process was performed at a negative and positive mode ESI. The results of this study showed a total of 63 flavonoid compounds. Some of the most important flavonoid compounds in each species contain baicalein and taxifolin in S. nepetifolia, norwogonin and liquiritin in S. patonii, skullcapflavone I and chrysin in S. condensata,and acacetin and 6-hydroxyluteolin-7-O-glucuronide in S. multicaulis. Regarding the existence of morphological similarity among S. nepetifolia, S. patonii, and S. multicaulis, three species were definitely separated. Based on the results of this research, LC-MS/MS is a highly appropriate technique to detect different chemical compounds and valuable in the chemotaxonomic aims of this genus.

Keywords:

LC-MS/MS , Secondary metabolite , Skullcaps , Chemotaxonomy , Irano-Turanian region