This work describes the potential of chemometric analyses applied to 1H high-resolution magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance (1H HR-MAS NMR) data for the chemotaxonomic investigation of Hancornia speciosa (Apocynaceae) varieties. This plant, popularly known as mangaba, has a complex morphological differentiation and thus chemical analyses can be used for their taxonomic classification. In comparison to traditional techniques, 1H HR-MAS NMR allied with chemometrics provided a simple and low cost method for chemotaxonomy. Leaves of four varieties of H. speciosa from a common garden experiment was studied and demonstrated that H. speciosa var. speciosa differs from others due to its specific metabolic profile, and var. pubescens was discriminated based on its high phenolic compound content. The distinction between the latter variety and gardineri is important once it allows for the selection of samples with greater commercial value, once they produce the largest and heaviest fruits.

In this paper we investigated the ability of the GIAO-mPW1PW91/6-31G(d)//mPW1PW91/6-31G(d) level of theory to predict the 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) chemical shifts of the 2’-hydroxy-3,4,5-trimethoxy-chalcone molecule. Two different approaches were used. First: the absolute shieldings σ for all carbon atoms in each geometrically optimized conformers of the 2’-hydroxy-3,4,5-trimethoxy-chalcone molecule were calculated at the GIAO-mPW1PW91/6-31G(d)//mPW1PW91/6-31G(d) level of theory. This approach is further used to generate weighted average values for each atom considering the previously obtained conformational distribution. Second: only the σ for the lowest energetic conformer will be taken to account. The robustness of the method was evaluated for two other chalcones: (E)-1-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-3-(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)prop-2-en-1-one and (E)-1-(4-aminophenyl)-3-(3,4-dimethoxyphenyl)prop-2-en-1-one, corroborating the ability of the method in chemical shift prevision. Although, both approaches were able to reproduce the chemical shifts of the 2’-hydroxy-3,4,5-trimethoxy-chalcone, significant differences in the calculated values for C-4 and methoxy carbons were observed. The best results were obtained using the second approach (II).