Bioactive Turkish plant extracts and their constituents

Abstract

Over 200 plant extracts were prepared from different family plants of rich flora of Turkey, in a frame of international collaborative project "Bioactive Turkish Plant Constituents". The plants were chosen randomly and/or partly based on their folkloric uses which belonged to 40 distinct families growing in Aegean and Marmara region, and their extracts were screened for their DNA damaging activity its well as for their human ovarian cytotoxic activity. For this purpose, firstly, methanol extracts of the collected plants were prepared and tested For their DNA damaging activity. Active extracts were diluted with water and partitioned with hexane, dichloromethane and ethyl acetate, successively, and the extracts were then tested for their activity. For DNA damaging activity, the extracts were tested against three yeasts RS321NYCp50 grown on galactose, RS321NpRAD52 on galactose, and RS321NpRAD52 on glucose, while A2780 human ovarian cell lines were used for cytotoxic activity tests. Among the all tested extracts, four most active extracts were selected for further studies, which are Ajuga postii. Laurus nobilis, Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Salvia hypargeia. In this presentation, bioactivity-directed isolation and structure elucidation of the active constituents will be given. Structures of the constituents, which form namely terpenoids (sesqui, di- and triterpenoids) were based on spectroscopic techniques, particularly intensive NMR and Mass spectroscopies.