Iranian plant Eremurus persicus: an overview of botany, traditional uses, phytochemistry and pharmacology

Eremurus persicus (Jaub. & Spach) Boiss. commonly known as "Serish" is a valuable ornamental plant with culinary uses and also utilized in traditional medicine for treating Gastrointestinal diseases. This comprehensive study was performed to investigate the pharmacological and biological effects of E. persicus and the compounds identified and isolated from it in order to encourage researchers to study it further. Despite the few number of studies on the ethnopharmacology of the plant E. persicus, however studies conducted on either crude extracts, solvent fractions or isolated pure compounds from E. persicus a varied range of biological effects comprising antibacterial, anti-fungal, anti-diabetic and etc. have reported. Phytochemical analysis of different parts of E. persicus unveiled 52 phytochemicals. However, the toxicity of this plant and its ethnopharmacological claims should be thoroughly investigated.

Phytochemistry of Verbascum Species Growing in Iraqi Kurdistan and Bioactive Iridoids from the Flowers of Verbascum calvum

Traditional medicine is still widely practiced in Iraqi Kurdistan, especially by people living in villages on mountainous regions; medicinal plants are also sold in the markets of the large towns, such as at Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region. About a dozen of Verbascum species (Scrophulariaceae) are commonly employed in the Kurdish traditional medicine, especially for treating burns and other skin diseases. However, the isolation of bioactive secondary metabolites from these plants has not been the subject of intense scientific investigations in Iraq. Therefore, the information reported in the literature about the species growing in Kurdistan has been summarized in the first part of this paper, although investigations have been performed on vegetable samples collected in neighbouring countries, such as Turkey and Iran. In the second part of the work, we have investigated, for the first time, the contents of a methanol and a hydromethanol extract of V. calvum flowers. The extracts exhibited weak antimicrobial activities, whereas the methanol extract showed significant antiproliferative effects against an A549 lung cancer cell line. Moreover, both extracts exhibited a significant dose-dependent free radical scavenging action against the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical, comparable to that of ascorbic acid. In the subsequent phytochemical study, a high phenolic content was determined in both extracts by the Folin–Ciocalteu assay and medium-pressure liquid chromatographic (MPLC) separation led to the isolation of iridoid glucosides ajugol and aucubin from the methanol extract. In conclusion, the high anti-inflammatory effects of aucubin and the remarkable antioxidant (antiradical) properties of the extracts give scientific support to the traditional use of V. calvum flowers for the preparation in Kurdistan of remedies to cure skin burns and inflammations.

Bioactive Constituents from the Traditional Kurdish plant Iris persica

In the first phytochemical investigation of non-volatile secondary metabolites from the Kurdish traditional plant Iris persica L, (-)-embinin was isolated from flowers and leaves, isovitexin from flowers, trans-resveratrol-3- O-β-D-glucopyranoside from rhizomes and tectorigenin from bulbs. The complete NMR spectra of embinin are reported for the first time. In an MTT assay, embinin showed an inhibition activity higher than the well-known antitumor drug cisplatin against five of the six tested human tumor cells. Moreover, embinin showed a significant DPPH radical scavenging activity (IC50 value of 112.16) comparable to the reference antioxidant ascorbic acid. The remarkable biological activities exhibited by the extracts of Iris persica and isolated compounds have validated the uses of I. persica in the traditional medicine of Kurdistan.

Chemical Composition and Antifungal Activity of Essential Oils from Flowers, Leaves, Rhizomes, and Bulbs of the Wild Iraqi Kurdish Plant Iris Persica

Essential oils obtained by hydrodistillation of different parts of Iris persica L. were investigated for the first time by GC-FID and GC-MS; moreover, their antifungal activities were determined. 34, 32, 27, and 17 compounds were identified in the oils from air-dried flowers, leaves, rhizomes and fresh bulbs, respectively, representing ≥ 98% each oil. The major constituents of the flower essential oil were phenylethanol (24.8%) and furfural (13.8%), which, as the main component, constituted also 39.0% and 22.2% of the leaf and rhizome volatile fractions, respectively. Phenylacetaldehyde (37.1%) was the main constituent of the bulb volatile fraction. In in vitro tests, moderate antifungal activity was detected for the oils against strains of the human pathogenic fungal species Candida albicans, Microsporum canis, and Trichophyton mentagrophytes, the plant-fungal pathogen Pyricularia oryzae, and the fungal food contaminant Aspergillus carbonarius,. The highest activity was exhibited by the essential oils from leaves and flowers, suggesting that they could be considered natural antimicrobial agents.