Fatty Acid Composition of Aconitum orientale Miller and A. nasutum Fisch. ex Reichb Seeds, A Chemotaxonomic Approach

Abstract

Aconitum L. genus (Ranunculaceae) is represented with 3 species in Flora of Turkeyl. They are Aconitum orientale Miller , Aconitum nasutum Fisch. ex Reichb. and A. cochleare Woroschin. In recent years, there are new addition to this number. Genus Aconitum have been also represented in the Delphinideae Tribus with the Consolida and Delphinium genus, according to Tahtajan3, Tamura4 and Jensen & also Davis 1, reported that Aconitum L. is a very critical genus and has extremely toxic plants, many of whose species show more variability than they are often credited with. Utelli et al.6, reported that the systematics of the yellow - flowered Aconitum Iycoctonum species complex (Ranunculaceae) growing in Europa has long been considered difficult because of high morphological variability and hypothesized hybridization. It has been demonstrated that the content and composition of fatty acids of seed lipids can serve as taxonomic markers in higher plants7,8. Fatty acids occur in high concentrations principally in plant seeds and fruit coats, where they may constitute up to 50 % of the dry weight. Variation in the fatty acids of seed fats has long been a point of interest to chemotaxonomists8• There are large differences between seed oil fatty acid patterns of variousgenera in the Ranunculaceae 9,10, These may be caused by the presence and absence of chain - elongating enzyme systems (elongases) and by the presence and absence of several types desaturateses operating at the carbon atoms number five and six (or six and seven) of the fatty acid chain. Many members of Ranunculaceae contain unusual fatty acids in their seed oils. This leads to rather typical genus - spesific fatty acid patterns or fmgerprints in these seed oils)). Since the early work of Kauffman & Barve12 , Bagby et al. 13, and Smith et al. 1\ seed oils from represantatives of the Ranunculaceae have attracted the attention of fatty acid researchers. This is from the wealth of different and unusual fatty acid structures that can be found at rather high levels in these seed oilsl5 • Some chemicals, particularly terpenoid constituents of the Aconitum species have been studying for a long time by some researchers 16-20. However, There are some systematic study on the genus6,21. Extracts of the plant Aconitum species are used in traditional chinese medicine predominantly as anti - inflammatory and analgesic agents and it is important with the aconitine alkaloids all over the world and in Turkey. In this study, we aimed to determine the fatty acid composition of two Aconitum species naturally growing in Turkey, A.orientale and A. nasutum, by using GC techniques and to help to bringing out the chemotaxonomic relationships among the genera within the family Ranunculaceae.