FAIR-CT96-5059 Pharmaceuticals from Phillyrea latifolia L: A new crop in the future of Mediterranean less-favoured areas

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Objectives:

Phillyrea latifolia L. represents a characteristic species of the Mediterranean bush and is well known through its long use in traditional medicines for people in Southern Europe. The aims of this project are to develop processes to isolate and identify the constituents responsible for certain properties of P. latifolia L, to investigate the occurrence of possible new chemical structures and to enhance the agro-industrial interest for the utilisation of a potential crop in less-favoured Mediterranean rural areas.

Activities and Results:

Pharmacological tests on total raw methanolic extracts and on middle polar fraction of material from this plant showed a remarkable aptitude to modulate classical pathway of the human complement system. Phytochemical investigations of these fractions permitted the isolation and identification, through use of sophisticated techniques, of some phenolic compounds: apigenin and luteolin derivatives and the propanoidglycoside verbascoside. In particular a relatively consistent amount of the unusual 4'-O-substituted flavon luteolin-4'-O-p -glucoside was isolated. Most of these were never found before in the Genus of Phillyrea. All the pure obtained compounds were pharmacologically tested and were shown to have interesting anti-inflammatory properties thus confirming the uses of Phillyrea decoctions in Mediterranean ethno-medicine and the properties of the whole extracts of the species.

Clinical and toxicological tests were proposed, in order to evaluate the possible utilisation of P latifolia L. leaves in the forms of macerates and/or galenic preparations or in smooth anti-inflammatory pharmaceutical natural products.

Conclusions:

The cultivation of this plants in the less favoured areas of Southern Europe could represent an interesting economic activity and may result in a possible way to recuperate degraded semi-arid territories.

Keywords: Phillyrea latifolia, traditional medicine

Contacts

Scientific Supervisor

• Peter PACHALY / Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitaet Bonn Pharmazeutisches Institut / GERMANY