Cyanolipid-rich seed oils from Allophylus natalensis and A. dregeanus

Natural Products Containing the Nitrile Functional Group and Their Biological Activities

The importance of nitriles as a key class of chemicals with applications across the sciences is widely appreciated. The natural world is an underappreciated source of chemically diverse nitriles. With this in mind, this review describes novel nitrile-containing molecules isolated from natural sources from 1998 to 2021, as well as a discussion of the biological activity of these compounds. This study gathers 192 molecules from varied origins across the plant, animal, and microbial worlds. Their biological activity is extremely diverse, with many potential medicinal applications.

Characterization of Seed Oil Components from Nephelium Lappaceum L

The chemical composition of the oil extracted from the seeds of Nephelium lappaceum L., commonly known as rambutan, has been investigated. The oil from this plant, similar to other members of the Sapindaceae, typically contained triglycerides (83%) and cyanolipids (17%). The latter consisted of type III cyanolipids, 1-cyano-2-hydroxymethylprop-1-en-3-ol diesters. Structural investigation of the oil components was carried out using chemical, chromatographic and spectroscopic methods. Oleic and arachidic acids were the two dominant esterified fatty acyl chains in both triglycerides and cyanolipids. Eicosenoic acids (cis-vaccenic and paullinic acid) were present in higher amounts in the cyanolipid fraction of the oil.

Fatty-Acid Composition of Seeds and Chemotaxonomic Evaluation of Sixteen Sapindaceae Species

Circumscriptions for the Sapindaceae family and its infrafamilial relationships have been widely discussed. Certain groups are highly morphologically similar; thus, it is difficult to identify certain taxa. DNA Analyses have also indicated complex phylogenetic relationships, and it is difficult to relate such analyses to morphological data. Given the above concerns, this study aimed to investigate the fatty-acid profiles of the seed oils of 16 Sapindaceae species belonging to five tribes and to evaluate their potential chemotaxonomic significance. In total, eleven fatty acids were identified, and eicosenoic acid predominated in nine species. Multivariate analyses (principal component and cluster analyses) of the fatty-acid profiles of the seed oils allowed to separate them in two major clusters. The first cluster, characterized by oils with high eicosenoic acid levels, included all species belonging to the Paullinieae tribe (Cardiospermum, Paullinia, and Serjania species). In the second main cluster, the chemical similarity of the oils was lower, and the species belonged to different tribes. Nevertheless, the tree investigated Allophylus species (Thouinieae tribe) constituted a separate subcluster. Thus, the results showed that the fatty-acid composition of the seed oils of Sapindaceae species provide chemotaxonomic support for the separation of the Paullinieae tribe from the other tribes studied.

Analysis of cyanolipids from Sapindaceae seed oils by gas chromatography-EI-mass spectrometry

As a continuation of our investigation on unusual lipids, in the present work we describe a method based on GC-FID and GC-EI-MS to analyze the molecular composition of intact cyanolipids (CL) from selected Sapindaceae plants. We applied our method to the study of CL of type I (1-cyano-2-hydroxymethyl-prop-2-en-1-ol-diester) from Paullinia cupana var. sorbilis and Allophylus dregeanus and CL type III (1-cyano-2-hydroxymethyl-prop-1-en-3-ol-diester) from A. natalensis and Nephelium lappaceum. Our analytical approach allowed us to obtain useful mass spectra to identify individual isomeric molecular species composing the CL mixtures and resulted in the very sensitive detection and identification of minor CL. Defined CL mass spectra resulted in suitable detection of these phytochemicals in complex plant oil mixtures containing acylglycerols. To the best of our knowledge GC-EI-MS spectra of cyanolipids have never been reported before. Moreover, this study improved previous knowledge of the lipid chemistry of Sapindaceae plants.