Biotechnological application of African mustard (Brassica tournefortii): LC-ESI-MS/MS in synergism with featured-based molecular networking, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory propensities

The African mustard, Brassica tournefortii, is a traditional medicinal food plant growing broadly on the Mediterranean coastline from El-Saloum to the Sinai Peninsula in the Egyptian Desert. In addition to its culinary uses, it is regarded as a very effective therapeutic herb due to its antioxidant propensities based on phenolic constituents, glucosinolates, and carotenoids. This study endeavored to spotlight the biotechnological application of B. tournefortii via LC-ESI-MS/MS in synergism with molecular networking (-MN). Aqueous ethanol extract of B. tournefortii (BAEE) was subjected to in vitro biological evaluations (antioxidant and anti-inflammation evaluations). Eighty compounds were annotated comprising 74 species-first detections, with the prevalence of flavonol-O-glycosides, followed by hydroxycinnamic and benzoic acids then phospholipids. Additionally, the BAEE showed DPPH and NO radical scavenging inhibition with an IC₅₀ (74 ± 1.01 and 99.87 ± 0.68 μg/ml), compared to ascorbic acid (201 ± 0.98 and 75.25 ± 0.87 μg/ml) and BHT (83 ± 1.84 and 63.35 ± 0.91 μg/ml), respectively. Moreover, in vitro anti-inflammatory evaluation showed that BAEE gave potent inhibition of COX-1 and COX-2 with IC₅₀ (2.9 ± 0.06 and 0.93 ± 0.058 μg/ml) compared with Celecoxib (48 ± 0.52 and 1.09 ± 0.01 μg/ml), Indomethacin (27 ± 0.1 and 0.762 ± 0.003 μg/ml), and Ibuprofen (0.97 ± 0.052 and 15 ± 0.612 μg/ml), respectively. The identified metabolites could be responsible for the observed antioxidant and anti-inflammatory potentials that tend to advocate for a dire need for further in vivo studies.