Evaluation of Tussilago farfara L. Smoke by GC/MS: A Phytochemical Approach to a Traditional Medicine

The smoke produced from natural substances such as medicinal plants is used in various cultures for different purposes. The use of medicinal fumes has been reported in nearly 50 countries. Among medicinal plants, Tussilago farfara L. known as coltsfoot has been introduced in Canon the famous book of Avicenna a Persian polymath, for chronic dry cough and various pulmonary diseases and shortness of breath. T. farfara is distributed in wet mountainous regions of Iran. For this study, the leaves and flowers of T. farfara were collected from Chalous Road in Iran. The smoke from the burning of T. farfara organs was prepared by homemade glassware trapping the smoke in methanol and then methanol was evaporated. In general, five grams of materials were burned and the smoke was dissolved and trapped in 100 ml of methanol. The trapped and dried materials from the smoke of extracts were filtered and injected into the GC/MS for analysis and identification of its constituents. 51 compounds representing 91.1 and 92.3 percent of smoke extracts of T. farfara were identified in leaf and flower. Also, 57 compounds were detected in the sample of EL and EF with 96.8 % and 97.7 %. The percentage of phenolic compounds that were identified in all extracts of smoke were SL and SF with 52.1 and 46.5, respectively. Phenol, Hydroquinone, P-Cresol and O-Cresol were the major compounds in the smoke extracts. Smoke leaves and flowers of T. farfara were selected to test the antimicrobial to continue. This study examined the bactericidal effect of smoke flowers. Fractions of effective constituents with the help of hexane-ethyl acetate with the method of thin layer chromatography (TLC) were isolated. The results of this experiment showed that a fraction (8:2) of hexane-ethyl acetate inhibited the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus. But Escherichia coli was not inhibited.