Water Extract of Cryphaea heteromalla (Hedw.) D. Mohr Bryophyte as a Natural Powerful Source of Biologically Active Compounds

Abstract

Bryophytes comprise of the mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. <i>Cryphaea heteromalla,</i> (Hedw.) D. Mohr, is a non-vascular lower plant belonging to mosses group. To the date, the most chemically characterized species belong to the liverworts, while only 3.2% and 8.8% of the species belonging to the mosses and hornworts, respectively, have been investigated. In this work, we present Folin-Ciocalteu and oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) data related to crude extracts of <i>C. heteromalla</i> obtained by three different extraction solvents: pure water (WT), methanol:water (80:20 <i>v</i>/<i>v</i>) (MET), and ethanol:water (80:20 <i>v</i>/<i>v</i>) (ETH). The water extract proved to be the best solvent showing the highest content of biophenols and the highest ORAC value. The <i>C. heteromalla</i>-WT extract was investigated by HPLC-TOF/MS (High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Time of Flight/Mass Spectrometry) allowing for the detection of 14 compounds, five of which were phenolic compounds, derivatives of benzoic, caffeic, and coumaric acids. Moreover, the <i>C. heteromalla</i> WT extract showed a protective effect against reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation induced by tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBH) on the murine NIH-3T3 fibroblast cell line.