ANALYSIS OF MAJOR SECONDARY METABOLITES IN TWO VARIETIES OF MEDICINAL PLANT (Orthosiphon aristatus BLUME MIQ)
Cat's Whiskers (Orthosiphon aristatus) is one of the well-known medicinal plants that have been utilized for medical purposes. The flower morphology of O. aristatus plants generally reveals their diversity. There are no reports of secondary metabolite differences between the purple and white-purple varieties of O. aristatus. To maximize the use of the two varieties of O. aristatus as herbal medicines, qualitative and quantitative analyses of secondary metabolites were performed on both varieties. Analyses of phytochemical profiles were conducted using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with a mobile phase (0.1% formic acid-acetonitrile), the concentrations of active compounds such as rosmarinic acid, sinensetin, and eupatorin were determined. The purple variety's ethanolic extract of its leaves contained rosmarinic acid. Sinensetin concentrations in ethyl acetate and ethanol extracts of purple variety leaves were 2.13 and 3.07% w/w, respectively. In comparison, both white-purple leaf extracts contained up to 0.95 and 1.82 percent sinensetin by weight, respectively. The purple variety leaves' ethanol extract contained the highest concentration of rosmarinic acid at 2.21 % w/w, while the white-purple variety leaves' ethyl acetate extract contained the highest concentration of eupatorin at 3.70 % w/w. Despite belonging to the same species, the composition of the two varieties of O. aristatus differed significantly. The concentration of each active compound, such as sinensetin, rosmarinic acid, and eupatorine, must be considered when O. aristatus is used to prepare herbal medicines.
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