A metabolite-profiling approach allows the identification of new compounds from Pistacia lentiscus leaves

Pistacia lentiscus L., commonly known as Mastic tree or lentisk, is a Mediterranean evergreen shrub widely used in traditional medicine to treat such diseases as eczema, diarrhoea, and throat infections. Furthermore, other properties are currently attributed to P. lentiscus, such as antioxidant capacity, hepatoprotective action, and anti-inflammatory effects. High-performance liquid chromatography with diode array coupled to electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS) was used for the comprehensive characterization of methanol extract from P. lentiscus leaves. After the optimisation of the HPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS method and the use of the negative ionization mode, 46 different compounds were identified, 20 of which were tentatively characterized for the first time in P. Lentiscus leaves. The majority of the compounds were quantified. Flavonoids, phenolic acids and their derivatives were the most abundant compounds, those with the highest concentrations being myricetin glycoside (6216.13 mg/kg of plant), catechin (3354.78 mg/kg of plant), β-glucogallin (2214.461 mg/kg of plant), and quercitrin gallate (1160 mg/kg of plant). The importance of the knowledge of plants is increasing and our study may help in the future to formulate nutraceutical preparations and will provide the basis for new investigation into activities of the various compounds found in P. lentiscus.