Differential constituents in roots, stems and leaves of Newbouldia laevis Thunb. screened by LC/ESI-Q-TOF-MS

Abstract

Newbouldia laevis (P. Beauv.) Seem. or “Boundary Tree” is a medium sized angiosperm in the Bignoniaceae family. It is native to tropical Africa, especially used in West Africa to mark property boundaries in rural areas. Despite its intensive use in folk medicine, the plant chemical composition is under investigated. The study is aimed at identifying the chemical constituents of N. laevis crude plant extracts by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) on line with an untargeted high-resolution mass spectrometry. The used HPLC method showed to be suitable for the determination of withasomnine, newbouldine, and lapachol derivatives together with other known bioactive compounds like phytosterols and triterpenoids. The importance of these chemical constituents is discussed with respect to the role of N. laevis in West African ethnomedicine. © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).