Seasonal variations in the amount of isoorientin and isovitexin in Cecropia glaziovii Sneth. leaves over a two-year period

Cecropia glaziovii Sneth (Urticaceae) is a common tree from Southeast and South of Brazil, being widely used in traditional medicine to treat heart and respiratory conditions. C-glycosylflavonoids have being described as the major compounds for this genus, however, no seasonality studies of individual flavonoids was conducted for any Cecropia specie. In this work, the content of isoorientin and isovitexin in aqueous extract from the leaves of C glaziovii during a two-year period was determined by high-performance liquid chromatography with diode array detector (hplc-dad). Seasonal alterations in the content of these two majority C-glycosylflavonoids as well its possible correlation with the pluviosity in the period of January/2008 to January/2010 were determined. Isoorientin presented higher content in November/09 (6.04 mg/g of extract) and lower content in May/08 (1.01 mg/g of extract). The higher content of isovitexin was observed in March/09 and the lower in September/08 (11.42 and 4.47 mg/g of extract, respectively). Although they have distinct behaviors, it was not observed correlation between the values of pluviosity and the production of these C-glycosylflavonoids.