Detection of Sesquiterpene Lactones in Ten Artemisia Species Population of Khorasan Provinces

Objective During the last three decades sesquiterpenoid lactones have emerged as one of the largest groups of plant products with over 3000 naturally occurring substances known. The genus Artemisia characteristically contains this biologically active type of secondary metabolites. With respect to increasing interest in the cytotoxic, antibiotic, phototoxic and antineoplastic activities of sesquiterpene lactones, identification of these compounds in Khorasanian Artemisia species, that some of them are endemic to Iran, can be worth while. Materials and Methods Ten species of Artemisia were collected from different parts of Khorasan Provinces of Iran. IR spectra recorded as KBr disks and in CH2Cl2 on a Unicam dp 110 spectrometer (UK). 1H-NMR (500 MHz) spectra were measured in CDCl3 using a Bruker DRX 500 spectrometer. Number of scans was 32 for all of the samples. The Herz-Högenauer technique was applied for preparation of the terpenoid extracts. Results Our findings revealed that A. absinthium, A. ciniformis, A. fragrans, A. khorassanica, A. kopetdaghensis, A. santolina and A. sieberi had a high amount of sesquiterpene lactones. A little or no sesquiterpene lactone had been detected in other species. Differentiation of saturated and unsaturated sesquiterpene lactones was one of the advantages of 1H-NMR application in this method. Conclusion Many of tested Khorasanian Artemisia species contained high amounts of sesquiterpene lactones.