Novas Saponinas Triterpênicas de Mandacaru (Cereus jamacaru)

Resumo

Mandacaru (Cereus jamacaru) is a Cactaceae species widely used as food and for medicinal purposes in
Brazilian’s northeastern region. Nevertheless, only a few alkaloids were identified from this plant. Hence,
the knowledge regarding their chemical diversity remains scarce. In view of the importance of mandacaru
for Brazilian semiarid region this work aimed to reinvestigate the chemical composition of C. jamacaru
applying modern phytochemical tools. To achieve this main goal, the extract of the cladodes was obtained
and chromatographed over Sephadex LH-20. After that, the main fractions were analyzed by High Pressure
Liquid Chromatograph (HPLC) and Mass Spectrometry (MS). These analyses combined allowed the
detection of two saponins, jamacarusides A and B, which were isolated and fully characterized based on
1D and 2D Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) data, as
well as their fragmentation patterns obtained from HPLC-ESI-MS/MS. In summary, this work contributed
to extend the current knowledge about the chemical composition of Cereus jamacaru and cactaceae family.