"TOXICITY OF ESSENTIAL OIL AND SEASONALITY OF FLORAL SCENT FROM Ipomoea asarifolia (Desr.) Roem. & Schult and I. setifera Poir."
chemical variability, floral visitors, melittophily, chemical ecology, seasonality, noxious weeds, pharmacokinetics.
Convolvulaceae Juss. is a family of vines and shrubs composed of species of ecological and economic importance. Ipomoea asarifolia (Desr.) Roem. & Schult. and I. setifera Poir. are ruderal and evergreen weeds that invade pastures and cause poisoning in livestock during the dry season. Their flowers are colorful and showy, but with little or no odor perceptible to the human sense of smell, their flowering periods are wide and both species are melittophilous. In the present study, the essential oils (EO) from the leaves of I. setifera (dry season) and I. asarifolia (dry and rainy season) were obtained by steam distillation for 3h and the floral scent of the two species was extracted during a gradient five months seasonal by simultaneous distillation/extraction process for 2h. The chemical composition of EO and floral scent was determined by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectroscopy (CG/MS) and gas chromatography with flame ionization detector (CG-FID). The toxicity of the main chemical constituents of the EOs of I. setifera and I. asarifolia was predicted the by the inhibition activity against the cytochrome P450 (CYP450) and P-glycoprotein 1 (P-gp) using a machine learning-based (ML-based) algorithm, in addition to the application of in silico analyses were a to assess pharmacokinetic properties related to penetration of the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Principal Component (PCA) and Hierarchical Clustering (HCA) Analyzes were performed with the chemical constituents of floral scent with ≥0.5% of the total composition. Computational analyzes indicated that the constituents caryophyllene oxide, cedroxide, pentadecanal, phytol and phytol derivative, present in the essential oils of these species, may be related to their toxicity. The composition of the floral scent of both Ipomoea species varied along the seasonal gradient. However, no correlation was observed between the variation in the aromatic profile of I. setifera and the change in the seasonal gradient, while a possible correlation was observed betwenn the variation in the floral scent of I. asarifolia and the seasonal gradient studied.