Red maple (Acer rubrum), also known as swamp, water or soft maple, is endemic to eastern and central North America and was widely used as a traditional medicine by the first peoples. Commercially, its well-known products include maple syrup and high quality lumber. The potential medicinal benefits of phenolic compounds extracted from the red maple plant parts, such as glucitol-core containing gallotannins, include anti-oxidant, and anti-glycative effects as well as their importance in cosmetic applications. Plant derived proteins and peptides are important biomolecules, however to date, there is no published data on the identification of proteins/peptides in red maple leaves. Therefore, the present study focuses on the activity guided purification of proteins from red maple leaves collected in spring and fall seasons. The red maple leaves were grounded, defatted in hexane and proteins extracted in 25 mM sodium phosphate buffer pH 6.5. The extracted crude proteins were recovered by precipitation in 60% ammonium sulphate. The first dimensional chromatography of crude extracted proteins was performed on gel filtration column (HiLoad 16/600 Superdex200). The fractions were analyzed by SDS-PAGE gel electrophoresis and screened for cytotoxicity activity on breast cancer (MCF-7) and anti-inflammatory activity on murine macrophage (RAW 264.7) cell lines. Preliminary data revealed that active protein fractions were eluted at two different regions of gel filtration chromatography both in spring and fall leaves. It further indicated that the active molecules may have diversity in their molecular mass. Further studies are in progress to fully characterize the primary structure of biologically active proteins in red maple and to evaluate their possible mechanism/s of action.

Characterization of biologically active proteins from red maple (Acer rubrum) leaves

2019 Spring National Meeting

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