Metabolome analysis, nutrient and antioxidant potential of aerial and underground parts of Ajuga parviflora Benth

Ajuga parviflora is a traditionally important herb to treat fever, diarrhoea, obesity, and diabetes. Earlier reports suggested that a limited chemical including nutritional information’s are available for A. parviflora. Hence, its metabolome analysis, nutritional and antioxidant activities are required to understand the role in health benefits. Metabolomics studies of aerial and underground part extracts (water, ethanol and 50 % ethanol) of A. parviflora were performed using UPLC-ESI-MS, UHPLC-Q-TOF-IMS coupled with multivariate statistical analysis. An UPLC-ESI-MS had identified sixty metabolites while 675 were using UHPLC-Q-TOF-IMS data-based search against METLIN database. Among thirteen targeted polyphenols, eight polyphenols were shown presence with higher concentration of vanillic acid (0.057 ± 0.002 mg/g), caffeic acid (0.002 ± 0.001 mg/g), and ferulic acid (3.766 ± 0.054 mg/g). Further, total phenolics (TP), flavonoids (TF), iridoid (TI) contents, nutritional components, amino acids, and antioxidant activities of extracts were conducted and found significant. Ethanol extracts of A. parviflora showed highest TP, TF, and TI contents while energy value was between 0.826 and 3.964 Kcal. Moreover, targeted, and untargeted metabolites diversifications among samples were monitored by multivariate statistical analysis. The metabolic variabilities were visualized with the percentage variance in PC 1–5 as 77.26, 21.06, 1.26, 0.25 and 0.15, respectively. The metabolomics-based information predicted a speculative metabolites biosynthetic pathway. The current understandings of metabolome information, nutritional component and antioxidant activities has supported A. parviflora for health benefits. This comprehensive investigation will help in quality agrotechnological interventions and value-added health benefit products.