A chemist's view of liverworts: NMR fingerprinting and chemotype classification of British Plagiochilae

Rycroft, D.S. (1999) A chemist's view of liverworts: NMR fingerprinting and chemotype classification of British Plagiochilae. Bulletin of the British Bryological Society(72), pp. 50-54.

Abstract

This work has evolved out of the chemical studies of the secondary metabolites of liverworts that have been going on at Glasgow for over 25 years. In considering both our and other people's work in this area, a recurring question was: are the secondary metabolites characteristic of the species or just of the particular specimen? Our efforts to answer this question for particular liverworts have involved using NMR spectroscopy to develop NMR fingerprinting (Rycroft, 1996). The novel aspect of this technique is to extract the plant material with deuterochloroform, the deuterated solvent that is normally used to measure NMR spectra; many benefits arise from the simplicity and directness of the procedure compared to more conventional methods (Rycroft, 1998a). In favourable circumstances, the amount of plant material required is only a fraction of many herbarium specimens, and the method opens up the possibility of undertaking comparative chemical studies using a wide range of fresh and/or herbarium material.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Invited contribution to BBS Annual Paper-reading Meeting, University of Loughborough, September 1998
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Rycroft, Dr David
• Authors: Rycroft, D.S.
• Subjects: Q Science > QK Botany; Q Science > QD Chemistry
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Chemistry
• Journal Name: Bulletin of the British Bryological Society
• ISSN: 0142 3169