A Chemometric Study on Certain Albizia Species (Fabaceae) Using Spectroscopic and Chromatographic Techniques

Abstract

Family Fabaceae, the third-largest angiosperm family, is comprising about 751 genera and 19,500 species. It presents great morphological and life history diversity and shows a significant increase in species diversification rate over the last 60 million years compared to angiosperms as a whole. Genus Albizia is one of the most remarkable lineages of family fabaceae regarding its variable phytochemical constituents including saponins, phenolics, alkaloids and terpenes besides its wide range of biological activities including (cytotoxic, antimicrobial, anti-malarial, antioxidant, antidiabetic, hepatoprotective, antidepressant, immunomodulatory, and anthelmintic activities). It encompasses approximately 150 species, typically trees and shrubs native to tropical and subtropical regions of Asia and Africa. This genus, belonging to family Fabaceae, subfamily mimosoideae, tribe Ingeae, was subjected to frequent taxonomic changes due to its complex and unstable taxonomic history. Therefore, accurate identification of closely related species belonging to genus Albizia is a priority because it plays an important role in the quality control as well as the medcinal exploitation of the genus. Classification of plant species can be achieved using a variety of methods including analysis of morphological characteristics, chemical constituents, and molecular genetic structure variations. Phylogenetic investigations of some Albizia species has been undertaken by means of multivariate analyses of morphological traits combined to different DNA molecular analysis techniques. Nevertheless, no reports document the use of molecular genetic classification tools with chemotaxonomic analysis. The present work discusses a chemometric comparative study between nine Albizia species cultivated in Egypt; Albizia lebbeck, A. julibrissin, A. odoratissima, A. procera, A. anthelmintica, A. guachapele, A. myriophylla, A. richardiana and A. lucidior utilizing the strengths of; Molecular taxonomy via ISSR and SCoT techniques, chemotaxonomy via selected spectroscopic and chromatographic techniques and chemometrics for the first time to resolve phylogenetic relationship among genus Albizia and provide baseline for future breeding programs and can be similarly applied in other studies. The leaves of different species under investigation were collected in summer 2017 and subjected to different assays as mentioned in the thesis different chapters that were divided into: