Biochemical Composition and Biological Activities of Various Population of <i>Brassica tournefortii</i> Growing Wild in Tunisia
2022
Hajer Tlili | Abdelkarim Ben Arfa | Abdelbasset Boubakri | Najjaa Hanen | Mohamed Neffati | Enrico Doria
<i>Brassica tournefortii Gouan</i>, commonly known (Aslooz) in Tunisia, is an annual plant, native to the North Africa and Middle East. <i>Brassica</i> species are used as food, their young leaves can be cooked, providing nutrients and health-giving phytochemicals such as phenolic compounds, polyphenols and carotenoids. Phytochemical composition and bioactivity of <i>Brassica tournefortii</i> leaf extracts, collected from four different bioclimatic zones in Tunisia, are investigated in the present study. Results showed that location and climatic variations can alter the phytochemical composition of <i>B. tournefortii</i>. Interestingly, HPLC analysis enabled identifying lutein and beta-carotene at high concentrations, especially in extracts of <i>B. tournefortii</i> collected from Gabes (B2) (344 µg/g of lutein) and <i>B. tournefortii</i> collected from Zarzis (B3) (1364 µg/g of beta-carotene). In particular, the antioxidant activity measured by DPPH assay showed that the extract of the plants collected from the growing region of Zarzis exhibits the highest antioxidant activities (0.99 mg/mL). All the <i>Brassica tournefortii</i> extracts showed a relevant antiproliferative activity, especially toward the Caco-2 cell line. These preliminary data resulted in being useful to correlate growth environmental conditions with different accumulation of metabolites in Brassica species still being poorly studied.
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