Phytochemical study of Psidium araça Raddi

Species of the Myrtaceae family are widely distributed in the southern hemisphere and include species of high economic value, such as “eucalipto” (Eucalyptus spp.), “goiaba” (Psidium guajava), and others still less exploited, such as Psidium araça Raddi (araça), species studied in the present work. Previous nutritional evaluations have shown that the araça fruits, appreciated as food, have low caloric value, high humidity and high levels of calcium and fibers. Its leaves are traditionally used in antidiarrheal preparations, as diuretic, against digestion and in slurries, due to the high content of tannins. Despite the medicinal and food use, there are only preliminary phytochemical studies with the species. The present work aimed to isolate and identify secondary metabolites of P. araça species. For this purpose, the aerial parts of P. araça were collected in Areia city – PB, identified by Prof. Leonardo P. Félix. The material was dried, ground and macerated with hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol, followed by evaporation of each solvent in a rotary evaporator to obtain the hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol extracts. The methanol extract was chromatographed successive times in Sephadex column using methanol as mobile phase. The obtained fractions were analyzed in thin layer chromatography to combine fractions or to evaluate their purity. From this procedure two fractions were purified and submitted to NMR analysis using deuterated acetone and DMSO. The obtained compounds were identified as the flavonoids quercetin and kaempferol, reported for the first time in the studied specie.