Das Lehrgebiet publiziert mit Partnern aus Ägypten in Marine Drugs den Artikel "Molecular Networking Leveraging the Secondary Metabolomes Space of Halophila stipulaceae (Forsk.) Aschers. and Thalassia hemprichii (Ehrenb. ex Solms) Asch. in Tandem with Their Chemosystematics and Antidiabetic Potentials".
The Red Sea is one of the most biodiverse aquatic ecosystems harbouring multitudes of rich and various living formats. Notably, one of the essential components of this unique territory are seagrasses which possess a crucial ecological significance. Among which are the two common Egyptian seagrasses taxa Halophila stipulacea (Forsk.) Aschers., and Thalassia hemprichii (Ehrenb. ex Solms) Asch., which were formally ranked together with the genus Enhalus in three separate seagrass families. Nevertheless, they were recently placed as three subfamilies within the freshwater family (Hydrocharitaceae). The interest of this study is to explore their metabolic profiles through UPLC-HRMS/MS analysis in synergism with molecular networking and to assess their chemosystematic relationship. The spectral similarity networks unearthed 144 annotated metabolites, encompassing phenolic acids, flavonoids, terpenoids, and lipids. Furthermore, 3 new phenolic acids; methoxy benzoic acid-O-sulphate (16), O-caffeoyl-O-hydroxyl dimethoxy benzoyl tartaric acid (26), dimethoxy benzoic acid-O-sulphate (30), a new flavanone glycoside; hexahydroxy-monomethoxy flavanone-O-glucoside (28), and a new steviol glycoside; rebaudioside-O-acetate (96) were tentatively described. From the chemosystematic point of view, the intergeneric and interspecific relationship among Halophila, Thalassia, and Enhalus significantly suggests their categorization in three different taxonomic ranks. Nevertheless, further chemical and molecular biological studies are needed to corroborate their correlation to other aquatic plants of the Hydrocharitaceae. Additionally, the evaluation of antidiabetic potential of both taxa displayed an inherited higher activity of H. stipulaceae in alleviating the oxidative stress and dyslipidemia associated with diabetes.
N.M. Hegazi, H.H. Saad, M.M. Marzouk, M.F. Abdel Rahman, M.H. El Bishbishy, A. Zayed, R. Ulber, S.M. Ezzat; Molecular Networking Leveraging the Secondary Metabolomes Space of Halophila stipulaceae (Forsk.) Aschers. and Thalassia hemprichii (Ehrenb. ex Solms) Asch. in Tandem with Their Chemosystematics and Antidiabetic Potentials; Mar. Drugs (2021), 19, 279. https://doi.org/10.3390/md19050279