Phytochemical Profile and Biological Properties of Colchicum triphyllum (Meadow Saffron)

In this work, the phytochemical profile and the biological properties of Colchicum triphyllum (an unexplored Turkish cultivar belonging to Colchicaceae) have been comprehensively investigated for the first time. Herein, we focused on the evaluation of the in vitro antioxidant and enzyme inhibitory effects of flower, tuber, and leaf extracts, obtained using different extraction methods, namely maceration (both aqueous and methanolic), infusion, and Soxhlet. Besides, the complete phenolic and alkaloid untargeted metabolomic profiling of the different extracts was investigated. In this regard, ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QTOF-MS) allowed us to putatively annotate 285 compounds when considering the different matrix extracts, including mainly alkaloids, flavonoids, lignans, phenolic acids, and tyrosol equivalents. The most abundant polyphenols were flavonoids (119 compounds), while colchicine, demecolcine, and lumicolchicine isomers were some of the most widespread alkaloids in each extract analyzed. In addition, our findings showed that C. triphyllum tuber extracts were a superior source of both total alkaloids and total polyphenols, being on average 2.89 and 10.41 mg/g, respectively. Multivariate statistics following metabolomics allowed for the detection of those compounds most affected by the different extraction methods. Overall, C. triphyllum leaf extracts showed a strong in vitro antioxidant capacity, in terms of cupric reducing antioxidant power (CUPRAC; on average 96.45 mg Trolox Equivalents (TE)/g) and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) reducing power (on average 66.86 mg TE/g). Interestingly, each C. triphyllum methanolic extract analyzed (i.e., from tuber, leaf, and flower) was active against the tyrosinase in terms of inhibition, recording the higher values for methanolic macerated leaves (i.e., 125.78 mg kojic acid equivalent (KAE)/g). On the other hand, moderate inhibitory activities were observed against AChE and α-amylase. Strong correlations (p < 0.01) were also observed between the phytochemical profiles and the biological activities determined. Therefore, our findings highlighted, for the first time, the potential of C. triphhyllum extracts in food and pharmaceutical applications.