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Abstract

Urtica dioica, commonly referred to as stinging nettle, is a medicinal plant rich in therapeutic bioactives. This study examined how different solvents—petroleum ether, chloroform, ethanol, and deionized water—with varying polarities influence the extraction and identification of phytochemicals from Urtica dioica using high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The results of high-performance liquid chromatography analysis based on retention time comparison with reference standards revealed that petroleum ether and chloroform extracts contained sterols, specifically Stigmasterol and β-Sitosterol. In contrast, ethanol and deionized water extracts exhibited six distinct peaks, comprising four phenolic acids (p-Coumaric acid, Caffeic acid, Ferulic acid, and Gallic acid) along with Rutin and Quercetin flavonoids.

Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis based on GC-MS library-based identification demonstrated that the petroleum ether extract contained diverse bioactive compounds, such as fatty acids, fatty alcohols, fatty esters, lactones and terpenoids. The chloroform extract primarily consisted of moderately polar compounds, including fatty acids, nitrogenous heterocycles, terpenoids, derivatives of benzofuran, and esters. Meanwhile, the ethanol extract was rich in polar compounds, such as phenolic esters, fatty acids, terpenoids, and lactones. To our knowledge, this study represents one of the earliest comprehensive solvent-based analyses of Urtica dioica conducted in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, offering region-specific preliminary phytochemical profiling rather than definitive structural confirmation. Further confirmation using advanced techniques such as LC-MS/MS or NMR is required.

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