Analysis of Aristolochia longa L. Medicinal Plant from Algeria

Abstract

In recent time, the therapeutic use of medicinal plants has increased all over the world. The efficacy of herbs for curative purposes is often accounted of its mineral and organic constituents. Neutron activation analysis (INAA) has been applied to mineral determination of Aristolochia Longa (bereztem), medicinal plant used to cure some diseases observed in Algeria especially cancer. In this work the mass fractions of Cr (15.22 ± 3.5 μg/g), Na (269.98 ± 25.01 μg/g), La (0.478 ± 0.041 μg/g), K (1.33 ± 0.23 μg/g), Br (1.2 ± 0.19 μg/g), As (0.697 ± 0.038) and Sb (66.09 ± 11.24 μg/g), were determined. This herb was collected from Taourirt Aden Berber village situated in Northern Algeria. Five elements were quantified in certified AIEA standards IAEA-V10 and IAEA-SL1 for checking the accuracy of our procedure. It was noteworthy the values obtained from this work are in good agreement with the certified values, the Z-score values for all elements were |Z| < 3. We believe that herb is natural and harmless compared with chemical drugs. Unfortunately the potential toxicity due to the Aristolochia Acids content has required the analysis of Aristolochia Longa by CG/MS and HPLC to highlight this compound. The standard of Aristolochic Acid (Sigma A5512-25 mg Yellow powder lot # wxbb6331VPCODE) was used as reference.