Seasonal variation in the chemical composition of two chemotypes of Lippia alba.

ABSTRACT

Lippia alba is a popular Brazilian herb known as 'cidreira' that presents several chemotypes which exhibit different chemical profile and they are widely used as seasonings and traditional medicine. This work describes the seasonal variation of metabolites of polar extracts of carvone and linalool chemotypes, identified by GC-MS analyses of the essential oils. A methodology was elaborated in order to obtain a seasonal variation in the chemical composition of leaf employing HPLC-DAD. Acteoside, isoacteoside, geneposidic acid, 8-epi-loganin, mussaenoside, luteolin 7-O-glucoside, apigenin 7-O-glucuronide and tricin 7-O-diglucuronide have been isolated and identified for validation procedures and chromatographic analysis. Geneposidic acid was presented in all samples, in contrast to the 8-epi-loganin and, mussaenoside which were presented only in the carvone-chemotype. Acteoside was the major metabolite detected from July to November while tricin-7-O-diglucuronide was the major compound in all other months. Besides, phenylpropanoids are predominant in winter and flavonoids in summer season.