Evaluation of nonpolar metabolites in plant extracts by 13C NMR spectroscopy

(13)C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy was explored as a simple and efficient technique for the quantitative analysis of nonpolar metabolites in plants. The method was first optimized with a mixture of known metabolites and then applied to the nonpolar leaf extracts of plants harvested in the Valencian community (eastern Spain) belonging to three different genera: Euphorbia (Euphorbiaceae), Araujia (Apocynaceae), and Morus (Moraceae). Furthermore, an exhaustive analysis of Euphorbia characias leaf and stem extracts from different geographic locations allowed that quantitative (13)C NMR spectroscopy is a suitable tool for metabolic profiling purpose.