Bioassay-Guided Fractionation of Pittosporum angustifolium and Terminalia ferdinandiana with Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectroscopy and Gas Chromatography Mass Spectroscopy Exploratory Study

Janice Mani; Joel Johnson; Holly Hosking; Luke Schmidt; Ryan Batley; Ryan du Preez; Daniel Broszczak; Kerry Walsh; Paul Neilsen; Mani Naiker

doi:10.3390/plants13060807

Bioassay-Guided Fractionation of Pittosporum angustifolium and Terminalia ferdinandiana with Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectroscopy and Gas Chromatography Mass Spectroscopy Exploratory Study

Plants (Basel). 2024 Mar 12;13(6):807. doi: 10.3390/plants13060807.

Authors

Janice Mani^{1

2}, Joel Johnson^{1

2}, Holly Hosking¹, Luke Schmidt³, Ryan Batley¹, Ryan du Preez¹, Daniel Broszczak³, Kerry Walsh^{1

2}, Paul Neilsen¹, Mani Naiker^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ College of Science and Sustainability, CQUniversity, North Rockhampton, QLD 4701, Australia.
² Institute for Future Farming Systems, CQUniversity, Bundaberg, QLD 4670, Australia.
³ School of Biomedical Sciences, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia.
⁴ Jawun Research Centre, Cairns, QLD 4870, Australia.

Abstract

Bioprospecting native Australian plants offers the potential discovery of latent and novel bioactive compounds. The promising cytotoxic and antibacterial activity of methanolic extracts of Pittosporum angustifolium and Terminalia ferdinandiana led to further fractionation and isolation using our laboratory's bioassay-guided fractionation protocol. Hence, the aim of this study was to further evaluate the bioactivity of the fractions and subfractions and characterize bioactive compounds using liquid chromatography mass spectroscopy (LC-MS/MS) and gas chromatography MS (GC-MS). Compounds tentatively identified in P. angustifolium Fraction 1 using LC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS were chlorogenic acid and/or neochlorogenic acid, bergapten, berberine, 8'-epitanegool and rosmarinic acid. GC-MS analysis data showed the presence of around 100 compounds, mainly comprising carboxylic acids, sugars, sugar alcohols, amino acids and monoalkylglycerols. Furthermore, the fractions obtained from T. ferdinandiana flesh extracts showed no cytotoxicity, except against HT29 cell lines, and only Fraction 2 exhibited some antibacterial activity. The reduced bioactivity observed in the T. ferdinandiana fractions could be attributed to the potential loss of synergy as compounds become separated within the fractions. As a result, the further fractionation and separation of compounds in these samples was not pursued. However, additional dose-dependent studies are warranted to validate the bioactivity of T. ferdinandiana flesh fractions, particularly since this is an understudied species. Moreover, LC-MS/GC-MS studies confirm the presence of bioactive compounds in P. angustifolium Fraction 1/subfractions, which helps to explain the significant acute anticancer activity of this plant. The screening process designed in this study has the potential to pave the way for developing scientifically validated phytochemical/bioactivity information on ethnomedicinal plants, thereby facilitating further bioprospecting efforts and supporting the discovery of novel drugs in modern medicine.

Keywords: LC-MS/MS; Pittosporum angustifolium; antioxidants; bioactive compounds; bioassay-guided fractionation; phenolic compounds; phytochemicals.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Research Training Program scholarship from the Australian Government awarded by CQUniversity to one of the authors (J.M.).