Nicander was a poet-naturalist of the 2nd century BC. Theriaca is his second surviving work, a Hellenistic poem, on the bites of venomous creatures, while a series of herbal remedies are also mentioned. The aim of this study was to evaluate the chemical content and biological properties of herbs reported on Theriaca and in particular to investigate the possibility of their application as therapeutic agents for wound healing and neurodegenerative diseases. Thirty plant species were extracted resulting in the ‘theriaca extracts’ library. Their chemical profile was analyzed by HPTLC and LC-MS. Their anti-venom potent was evaluated by enzymatic inhibitory assays. Hyaluronidase, phospholipase-A2 and acetylcholinesterase [1] are common molecular targets for the evaluation of anti-ophidian properties of natural products. Furthermore, the Heterocovariance based metabolomics (HetCa) were implemented for the fractions obtained from the most promising extracts in order to permit the rapid statistical correlation between biological activity and spectral data deciphering the active compounds.[2] It is a new method for the assessment and exploitation of ethnopharmacological data avoiding laborious purifications and re-isolation of already known compounds. Paeonia parnassica, a Greek endemic species, and three Aristolochia spp. were chosen for fractionation by means of Centrifungal Partition Chromatography. The obtained fractions were evaluated for their ability to inhibit the enzyme targets where the initial extract was active. The chemical composition of each fraction was established by NMR-dereplication approach and analyzed by HPTLC. The HetCa revealed the anti-acetylcholinesterase and anti-hyaluronidase agents of P. parnassica corresponding to compounds of different categories.
[1] Molander M. et al. Hyaluronidase, phospholipase A2 and protease inhibitory activity of plants used in traditional treatment of snakebite-induced tissue necrosis in Mali, DR Congo and South Africa. J Ethnopharmacology 2014; 18:157:171-80
[2] Aligiannis N. et al. Heterocovariance Based Metabolomics as a Powerful Tool Accelerating Bioactive Natural Product Identification. ChemistrySelect, 2016; 1:10:2531–2535