Student Speaker

Mass Spectrometric and Anti-viral Investigation of Rhizome Ethanol Extract from Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis L., Papaveraceae)

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Abstract

The bloodroot plant (Sanguinaria Canadensis L.) is a monotypic genus of the family Papaveracea. Bloodroots, and plants with similar compounds, have been suggested for anti-viral activity. Extracts from the bloodroot plant and the rhizome itself have been used medicinally by the Native Americans; bloodroot extract is predominantly composed of benzophenanthridine alkaloids. However, which of these alkaloid(s) is/are acting as the anti-viral agent is not yet known. Metabolite profiling has not yet been used to discover bioactivity of the bloodroot extract. Bloodroot samples from different locations around Iowa were collected in early spring of 2014 to conduct a metabolite profile. We have developed a novel LC-MS method to profile metabolites in bloodroot extracts using electro spray ionization (ESI). We were able to confidently identify about a dozen alkaloids using MS/MS capabilities. Quantification parameters were optimized with multiple reactions monitoring (MRM) to accurately quantitate the amount of alkaloids present in each extract. The metabolite profiling was addressed in two steps. First, we profiled to pinpoint the most active metabolite/s for anti-viral assays, and secondly we profiled across different tissue types in the same plant to discover the alkaloid distribution pattern. The results from the metabolic profile will be used to investigate the anti-viral activity of the individual alkaloids. Interestingly, the alkaloid distribution pattern varied among the different tissues within the same plant. Of the different tissues, we found the rhizome to contain the most abundant amount of alkaloids. To our knowledge this is the first metabolite profiling done on the bloodroot plant.