Chemical Constituents with Leishmanicidal Activity from a Pink-Yellow Cultivar of Var. (L.) Collected in Central Mexico

(L.) is employed by several ethnical groups to treat numerous diseases. Although there are no ethnomedical reports on its use against leishmaniasis, organic extracts prepared from were shown to display leishmanicidal activity. In the present study, we carried out a bioassay-guided fractionation of the dichloromethane extract from Mexican in order to identify the compounds responsible for the leishmanicidal activity. Eighteen chromatographic fractions (FI⁻FXVIII) were evaluated in vitro against and . FII, FX, FXI, FXV, and FXVI showed significant activity against both strains, the most potent of which was FXV. Eicosane (), squalene (), β-ionone (), caryophyllene oxide (), β-caryophyllene (), hexanoic acid (), tiglic acid (), a mixture of lantanilic () and camaric () acids, and lantadene B () were identified and obtained from the active fractions and evaluated for their leishmanicidal activity. The mixture of lantanilic () and camaric () acids (79%/21%) was the most potent one (half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC) = 12.02 ± 0.36 μM). This study indicates that this cultivar of has high potential for the development of phytomedicines or as a source of natural products, which might represent lead compounds for the design of new drugs against leishmaniasis.