Phytochemical study of Campanula pelviformis, an edible species of eastern Crete

Campanula pelviformis is a plant species that belongs in the Campanulaceae family. That plant is narrowly endemic, it grows in Sitia, Eastern Crete. In this particular study, C. pelviformis was phytochemically analysed.

The methanolic extract of its aerial parts was fractionated with liquid-liquid extraction (distribution) with four different solvents of increasing polarity: petroleum ether, ethyl acetate, 1-butanol and water. The petroleum ether, ethyl acetate and butanol extracts were further studied for their chemical composition. So far ten secondary metabolites of the plant were isolated: a polyacetylenes: lobetyolin (1), an alcohol: gentiobioside of 1-octen-ol (2), two phenylpropanoids: demethylsyrrigin (3) and wahlenoside A (4), two chlorogenic acid ester, the chlorogenic acid methyl ester (5) an the chlorogenic acid boutyl ester (6), two flavonoids, nicotiflorin (7) and rutin (8), and two megastigmane glucosides, corchoionoside A (9) and glucoside of 6-hydroxy-4-megastigmen-3,6-dione (10). This is the first research that concerns the phytochemical composition of this endemic Greek plant. All these compounds (1 – 10) were isolated from this particular species for the first time. Moreover, this is the first time that megastigmanes are reported in the genus Camlanula. The chemical structures of the isolated compounds were established by 1D and 2D NMR analysis (1H, 13C, gDQCOSY, gHSQCAD, gHMBCAD), and through comparison with the literature.

Publication History

Article published online:
12 December 2022