Synthesis of deuterium-labelled substrates for the study of oleuropein biosynthesis in Olea europaea callus cultures

Abstract

We propose the cell culture approach to investigate oleuropein (1) biogenesis in Olea europaea L. We suggest employing olive callus cultures to identify the iridoidic precursor of oleuropein. In fact, we confirmed that callus cells from olive shoot explants are able to produce key secoiridoid as 1. To enable this approach, we synthesised and characterised deuterium-labelled iridoidic precursors belonging both to the loganin and the 8-epiloganin series. These iridoids are [7,8-²H₂]-7-deoxy-8-epi-loganin (2^D), [8,10-²H₂]-8-epi-loganin (4^D) and [7,8-²H₂]-7-deoxy-loganin (3^D).

Keywords:

• Iridoid
• oleuropein
• biogenesis
• deuterium label
• ESI-MS

Acknowledgements

We thank Prof. Gabriella Pasqua and her staff (Dr Anna Rita Santamaria and Dr Alessio Valletta) of Dipartimento di Biologia Ambientale, Università di Roma “La Sapienza” for their valuable advice and assistance on cell cultures.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.