Chemical characterisation of Nigerian red propolis and its biological activity against Trypanosoma Brucei.

INTRODUCTION: A previous study showed the unique character of Nigerian red propolis from Rivers State, Nigeria (RSN), with regards to chemical composition and activity against Trypanosoma brucei in comparison with other African propolis. OBJECTIVE: To carry out fractionation and biological testing of Nigerian propolis in order to isolate compounds with anti-trypanosomal activity. To compare the composition of the RSN propolis with the composition of Brazilian red propolis. METHODOLOGY: Profiling was carried out using HPLC-UV-ELSD and HPLC-Orbitrap-FTMS on extracts of two samples collected from RSN with data extraction using MZmine software. Isolation was carried out by normal phase and reversed phase MPLC. Elucidation of the compounds with a purity > 95% was performed by 1D/2D NMR HRMS and HRLC-MS(n) . RESULTS: Ten phenolic compounds were isolated or in the case of liquiritigenin partially purified. Data for nine of these correlated with literature reports of known compounds i.e. one isoflavanone, calycosin (1); two flavanones, liquiritigenin (2) and pinocembrin (5); an isoflavan, vestitol (3); a pterocarpan, medicarpin (4); two prenylflavanones, 8-prenylnaringenin (7) and 6-prenylnaringenin (8); and two geranyl flavonoids, propolin D (9) and macarangin (10). The tenth was elucidated as a previously undescribed dihydrobenzofuran (6). The isolated compounds were tested against Trypanosoma brucei and displayed moderate to high activity. Some of the compounds tested had similar activity against wild type T. brucei and two strains displaying pentamidine resistance. CONCLUSION: Nigerian propolis from RSN has some similarities with Brazilian red propolis. The propolis displayed anti-trypanosomal activity at a potentially useful level.

The Chemical Characterization of Nigerian Propolis samples and Their Activity Against Trypanosoma brucei.

Profiling of extracts from twelve propolis samples collected from eight regions in Nigeria was carried out using high performance liquid chromatography (LC) coupled with evaporative light scattering (ELSD), ultraviolet detection (UV) and mass spectrometry (MS), gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). Principal component analysis (PCA) of the processed LC-MS data demonstrated the varying chemical composition of the samples. Most of the samples were active against Trypanosoma b. brucei with the highest activity being in the samples from Southern Nigeria. The more active samples were fractionated in order to isolate the component(s) responsible for their activity using medium pressure liquid chromatography (MPLC). Three xanthones, 1,3,7-trihydroxy-2,8-di-(3-methylbut-2-enyl)xanthone, 1,3,7-trihydroxy-4,8-di-(3-methylbut-2-enyl)xanthone a previously undescribed xanthone and three triterpenes: ambonic acid, mangiferonic acid and a mixture of α-amyrin with mangiferonic acid (1:3) were isolated and characterised by NMR and LC-MS. These compounds all displayed strong inhibitory activity against T.b. brucei but none of them had higher activity than the crude extracts. Partial least squares (PLS) modelling of the anti-trypanosomal activity of the sample extracts using the LC-MS data indicated that high activity in the extracts, as judged from LCMS2 data, could be correlated to denticulatain isomers in the extracts.

Chromatographic analysis with different detectors in the chemical characterisation and dereplication of African propolis.

Propolis or bee glue has very diverse composition and is potentially a source of biologically active compounds. Comprehensive chemical profiling was performed on 22 African propolis samples collected from the sub-Saharan region of Africa by using various hyphenated analytical techniques including Liquid Chromatography (LC)-UltraViolet Detection (UV)-Evaporative Light Scattering Detection (ELSD), LC-High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS), Gas Chromatography (GC)-MS and LC-Diode Array Detector (DAD)-HRMS/MS. The diversity of the composition of these African propolis samples could be observed by heat mapping the LC-UV and ELSD data. The characteristic chemical components were uncovered by applying Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to the LC-HRMS data and a preliminary dereplication was carried out by searching their accurate masses in the Dictionary of Natural Products (DNP). A further identification was achieved by comparing their GC-MS or LC-DAD-HRMS/MS spectra with previously published data. Generally no clear geographic delineation was observed in the classification of these African propolis samples. Triterpenoids were found as the major chemical components in more than half of the propolis samples analysed in this study and some others were classified as temperate and Eastern Mediterranean type of propolis. Based on the comparative chemical profiling and dereplication studies one uncommon propolis from southern Nigeria stood out from others by presenting prenylated isoflavonoids, which indicated that it was more like Brazilian red propolis, and more significantly a high abundance of stilbenoid compounds which could be novel in propolis.