Mesembryanthemum edule (Aizoaceae family) is an edible halophyte widely used as a food ingredient and in traditional medicine. This study was intended to characterize the phenolic compounds of M. edule fresh and stone stems. The approach consisted to establish the phenolic composition through LC-DAD-ESI/MS consisted of an Acquity UPLC (Waters, Milford, MA) coupled with DAD and a Brucker Daltonics Ion trap mass spectrophotometer. The UPLC analysis revealed that the main phenolic compounds were catechin, epicatechin and procyanidin (4.9% yields) in the fresh stems, while catechin,epicatechin, procyanidin and propelargonidins (5.06% yields) were the most abundant phenolics in the stone stems.
Esculetin is a phenolic compound that is found in various natural plant products and induces apoptosis in several types of human cancer cells. However, the underlying mechanisms of its action are not completely understood. In the present work a phytochemical study of ethyl acetate extracted from the aerial parts of Euphorbia guyoniana plant endemic of Algeria, led to the isolation of a compound (esculetin). The purification of this compound was by column chromatography and TLC. The identification of the structure was used by usual spectroscopic methods such as ESI-MS, NMR (1D and 2D). Coumarins Euphorbia guyoniana were not isolated earlier.