Comparative analysis of the chemical profiles of Pyrolirion albicans alkaloid extract by UPLC-ESI-MS and GC-EI-MS

OLIMPIA LLALLA-CORDOVA; LUCIANA TALLINI; LUNA, LORENA C.; JAUME BASTIDA; GABRIELA E. FERESIN; JAVIER E. ORTIZ

San Juan

Congreso; XLI CONGRESO DE LA SOCIEDAD DE BIOLOGIA DE CUYO; 2023

SOCIEDAD DE BIOLOGIA DE CUYO

The Pyrolirion Herb. genus belongs to the tribe Eustephieae, according to World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) (2014), Pyrolirion Herb. consists of eight species: P. albicans Herb., P. arvense (F. Dietr.) Erhardt, Gotz & Sey-bold, P. boliviensis (Baker) Sealy, P. cutleri (Cardenas) Ravenna, P. flavum Herb., P. huantae Ravenna, P. tarahuasicum Ravenna, and P. tubiflorum (L'Her.) M. Roem. Most of these species are Andean, seven are found in Peru, two in Bolivia, and one in Chile. P. albicans is endemic to sandy biomes between 50 and 300m in the coastal region of southern Peru, where it blooms during the fog and drizzle season. The analysis of plant extracts by GC-MS is a technique with high reproducibility and capable of detecting very low polarity compounds. UPLC-MS analysis represents a soft ionization technique that shows results that better reflects the real composition of each plant extract, and can also analyze compounds of higher polarity. Thus, both techniques are complementary in the analysis of natural products. The objective was to compare qualitatively the alkaloid composition of the P. albicans species by GC-MS and UPLC-MS to identify potential bioactive compounds. Dry bulbs were chopped, dried, and subsequently subjected to the alkaloids extraction. In the case of GC-MS, alkaloid identification was performed using DB5-MS column and AMDIS 2.65 program with a private library of 300 alkaloids. For UPLC-MS, Acquity BEH C18 column, 1.7 µm, 2.1 mm x 100mm and MassLynx v4.2 (ChromaLynx) program with a private library of 40 alkaloids were used. 12 alkaloids were identified by GC-MS while 6 were identified by UPLC-MS. In the GC-MS analysis, the total ion current showed Tazettine (Taz) as the main alkaloid, followed by Lycorine and Sanguinine. In the UPLC-MS analysis, the 3 alkaloids mentioned above were also observed with high abundance, showing a new signal corresponding to a tazettine-type alkaloid, suggesting that it could be Pretazettine (precursor of Taz), which does not appear in GC-MS due to the high temperature in the oven that decomposes most of the compound, transforming it into Taz. Thus, some alkaloids are preserved if analyzed by UPLC-MS, and a more real alkaloid extract profile is acquired, confirming that this method allows the detection of other potentially bioactive molecules. Pretazettine and Taz stand out in this species as alkaloids with well-known high anti-tumoral activity.