The occurrence of unique, long-chain polyprenols in the leaves of Potentilla species.

Polyprenols are accumulated in the leaves of Potentilla anserina at concentration up to 0.3% fresh weight. They constitute a mixture of poly-cis fully unsaturated analogues of up to 29 isoprene units long. In this and other species of Potentilla the polyprenol mixture is composed of two families, one grouping the medium chain-length polyprenols (built up of about 20 isoprene units), and the second one, composed mainly of very long prenolgues from 24 to approx. 28 isoprene units. This is a first report on the occurrence of polyprenyl alcohols of this chain length in plant material and the first one on the presence of multiple polyprenol mixture in angiosperms. A useful modification of polyprenols preparation from plant material, based on solid phase extraction with hydrophobic gel Lipidex-5000 is described.