Author(s): Stephanie Cochran , Jessica Patton , Carolyn Y. Dadabay

Presentation: poster

Flavonoids are compounds generated in plants that are thought to perform antioxidative roles when integrated into the human diet. Basin big sagebrush, or Artemisia tridentata ssp. tridentata, native to southwestern Idaho, comprises a naturally occurring source of flavonoids that may offer value in the development of treatments for degenerative diseases such as cancers and cardiovascular illnesses. Preliminary identification of flavonoids is being accomplished through UV-spectroscopy, mass spectrometry and reversed-phase high pressure liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). This study focuses on the identification of the flavonoid kaempferol in sagebrush extracts. Fractionation of extracts utilizing RP-HPLC yielded a single kaempferol peak at approximately 28 minutes when the experiment utilized a 250μL column. However, a higher resolution a 20μL column resulted in a cluster of three peaks around the characteristic retention time. Doped samples of sagebrush extract with a standard (1.0 mM, 90% purity) at sequentially increasing 0.5µL aliquots consistently increased the amplitude of all three peaks, emphasizing the high levels of purity required to identify kaempferol in the sagebrush extract. Co-injections of sagebrush were repeated utilizing a 1.0mM standard of kaempferol at 99% purity to more definitively determine the characteristic retention pattern of kaempferol and the presence of kaempferol in Artemesia tridentata ssp. tridentata.

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