Chemical constituents of ornamental pomegranate and its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities in comparison with edible pomegranate

Abstract

Chromatographic fractionation of the alcoholic extract of leaves of Punica granatum L. var. nana (Punicaceae) resulted in the isolation and identification of nine compounds, three of them are firstly reported in the family: I²-amyrin (1), corosolic acid (4) and luteolin-7-O-(6``-O-galloyl)-I²-d-glucoside (9) in addition to I²-sitosterol (2), ursolic acid (3), friedelin (5), I²-sitosterol-3-O-I²-d-glucopyranoside (6), 2-methyl-pyran-4-one-3-O-I²-d-glucopyranosid (7), luteolin-4'-O-I²-d-glucoside (8). Their structures were established by various spectroscopic methods (1H NMR, 13C NMR, HSQC, HMBC and UV spectroscopy) as well as comparison with authentic samples. Biological studies of different extracts of P. granatum L. var. nana (ornamental pomegranate) in comparison with P. granatum L. (edible pomegranate) showed that the extracts of edible pomegranate have slightly higher antioxidant activity than the corresponding extracts of the ornamental one using DPPH assay, while the extracts of ornamental pomegranate have higher anti-inflammatory activity than corresponding extracts of the edible one using carrageenan-induced rat hind paw edema model.