molecules Article Effect of Oxylipins, Terpenoid Precursors and Wounding on Soft Corals’ Secondary Metabolism as Analyzed via UPLC/MS and Chemometrics Mohamed A. Farag 1,2,*, Hildegard Westphal 3,4, Tarek F. Eissa 5, Ludger A. Wessjohann 6 and Achim Meyer 3 ID 1 Department of Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmacy, Cairo University, Kasr El Aini St., Cairo 11562, Egypt 2 Department of Chemistry, School of Sciences & Engineering, The American University in Cairo, New Cairo 11835, Egypt 3 Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research, Fahrenheit Str.6, D-28359 Bremen, Germany;
[email protected] (H.W.);
[email protected] (A.M.) 4 Department of Geosciences, Bremen University, Fahrenheit Str.6, D-28359 Bremen, Germany 5 Department of Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmacy, Modern Science and Arts University, Cairo 12566, Egypt;
[email protected] 6 Department of Bioorganic Chemistry, Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry, Weinberg 3, D-06120 Halle, Germany;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] or
[email protected] Received: 28 October 2017; Accepted: 2 December 2017; Published: 10 December 2017 Abstract: The effect of three oxylipin analogues, a terpenoid intermediate and wounding on the secondary metabolism of the soft corals Sarcophyton glaucum and Lobophyton pauciflorum was assessed. Examined oxylipins included prostaglandin (PG-E1), methyl jasmonate (MeJA), and arachidonic acid (AA) in addition to the diterpene precursor geranylgeranylpyrophosphate (GGP). Post-elicitation, metabolites were extracted from coral heads and analyzed via UPLC-MS followed by multivariate data analyses. Both supervised and unsupervised data analyses were used for sample classification. Multivariate data analysis revealed clear segregation of PG-E1 and MeJA elicited S.