The authors are grateful to Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia
(FCT, Portugal) for Fnancial support to CIMO (strategic
project PEst-OE/AGR/UI0690/2011), REQUIMTE (PEst-C/EQB/
LA0006/2011), M.I. Dias (SFRH/BD/84485/2012 grant), R.C.
Calhelha (SFRH/BPD/68344/2010 grant) and L. Barros (contract
under “Programa Compromisso com Ciência-2008”). The GIPUSAL
is Financially supported by the Spanish Government
through the Consolider-Ingenio 2010 Programme (FUN-CFOOD,
CSD2007-00063). M. Dueñas thanks to the Programa
Ramón y Cajal for a contract.
The bioactivity (antioxidant and cytotoxic activities) of the aqueous and methanolic extracts of Arenaria montana L., a plant commonly used in Portuguese folk medicine, was evaluated and compared. Furthermore, the phytochemical composition was determined regarding hydrophilic (sugars, organic acids and phenolic compounds) and lipophilic (fatty acids and tocopherols) compounds, in order to valorize this plant material as a functional food/nutraceutical. Fructose, oxalic acid, methyl-luteolin 2’’-O-feruloylhexosyl-C-hexoside, α-tocopherol, and linoleic acid were the main individual compounds found in A. montana. In general, the aqueous extract gave higher antioxidant and cytotoxic activity than the methanolic extract; the latter showed activity only against HeLa and HepG2 cell lines. Both aqueous and methanolic extracts showed some hepatotoxicity but at higher doses than the ones active for tumor cell lines. Moreover, the aqueous extract of A. montana may be used as a functional food or nutraceutical due to the high antioxidant and cytotoxic activity, and to the presence of bioactive compounds. As far as we know, this is the first report on phytochemical composition and bioactivity of A. montana.
