Extraction, Isolation, and Characterization of Plant Natural Products Using Conventional and Non-conventional Techniques

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Phytochemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2024 | Viewed by 772

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, University of Chile, Las Palmeras 3425, Nuñoa, Santiago 7800024, Chile
Interests: conventional and non-conventional extraction; isolation of secondary metabolites from terrestrial and marine organisms; nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR); liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS); green chemistry from natural products
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The extraction of secondary metabolites depends on many conditions, such as the extraction technique and the extraction solvent used. Such techniques can be divided into conventional or non-conventional. Conventional techniques use organic solvents, temperature, and agitation, such as with Soxhlet, maceration, and hydrodistillation techniques. On the other hand, non-conventional techniques reduce energy use and are considered clean techniques (Green); supercritical extraction, pressurized liquid extraction, ultrasound- and microwave-assisted extraction, pulsed electric field, high hydrostatic pressure, and high voltage electrical discharges are all non-conventional techniques. For the isolation of plant natural products along with their purification, some classic techniques, including traditional chromatography (open column, chromatotron, etc), liquid chromatography, and countercurrent chromatography, are essential.

This Special Issue aims to include the most recent processes used in the extraction, isolation, and purification of plant natural products. Therefore, it focuses on extraction and isolation using classical methods and novel methodologies; structural characterization based on NMR and MS/MS; identification of extracts via hyphenated techniques and their pharmacological applications. We hope that our colleagues can contribute original research papers and/or reviews according to their expertise.

Dr. Carlos Areche
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • conventional extraction
  • chromatography
  • HSCCC
  • HPLC
  • structural elucidation
  • unconventional extraction
  • green chemistry
  • green technology
  • natural products
  • plants
  • supercritical fluids
  • ultrasound
  • microwave

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 929 KiB  
Article
Green Separation by Using Nanofiltration of Tristerix tetrandus Fruits and Identification of Its Bioactive Molecules through MS/MS Spectrometry
by Nicolás Cifuentes-Araya, Mario Simirgiotis, Beatriz Sepúlveda and Carlos Areche
Plants 2024, 13(11), 1521; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13111521 - 31 May 2024
Abstract
Membrane technology allows the separation of active compounds, providing an alternative to conventional methods such as column chromatography, liquid–liquid extraction, and solid–liquid extraction. The nanofiltration of a Muérdago (Tristerix tetrandus Mart.) fruit juice was realized to recover valuable metabolites using three different [...] Read more.
Membrane technology allows the separation of active compounds, providing an alternative to conventional methods such as column chromatography, liquid–liquid extraction, and solid–liquid extraction. The nanofiltration of a Muérdago (Tristerix tetrandus Mart.) fruit juice was realized to recover valuable metabolites using three different membranes (DL, NFW, and NDX (molecular weight cut-offs (MWCOs): 150~300, 300~500, and 500~700 Da, respectively)). The metabolites were identified by ESI-MS/MS. The results showed that the target compounds were effectively fractionated according to their different molecular weights (MWs). The tested membranes showed retention percentages (RPs) of up to 100% for several phenolics. However, lower RPs appeared in the case of coumaric acid (84.51 ± 6.43% (DL), 2.64 ± 2.21% (NFW), 51.95 ± 1.23% (NDX)) and some other phenolics. The RPs observed for the phenolics cryptochlorogenic acid and chlorogenic acid were 99.74 ± 0.21 and 99.91 ± 0.01% (DL membrane), 96.85 ± 0.83 and 99.20 ± 0.05% (NFW membrane), and 92.98 ± 2.34 and 98.65 ± 0.00% (NDX membrane), respectively. The phenolic quantification was realized by UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS. The DL membrane allowed the permeation of amino acids with the MW range of about 300~100 Da (aspartic acid, proline, tryptophan). This membrane allowed the highest permeate flux (22.10–27.73 L/m2h), followed by the membranes NDX (16.44–20.82 L/m2h) and NFW (12.40–14.45 L/m2h). Moreover, the DL membrane allowed the highest recovery of total compounds in the permeate during the concentration process (19.33%), followed by the membranes NFW (16.28%) and NDX (14.02%). Permeate fractions containing phenolics and amino acids were identified in the membrane permeates DL (10 metabolites identified), NFW (13 metabolites identified), and NDX (10 metabolites identified). Particularly, tryptophan was identified only in the DL permeate fractions obtained. Leucine and isoleucine were identified only in the NFW permeate fractions, whereas methionine and arginine were identified only in the NDX ones. Liquid permeates of great interest to the food and pharmaceutical industries were obtained from plant resources and are suitable for future process optimization and scale-up. Full article
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11 pages, 610 KiB  
Article
Microwave-Assisted Extraction of Secondary Metabolites Using Ethyl Lactate Green Solvent from Ambrosia arborescens: LC/ESI-MS/MS and Antioxidant Activity
by Evelyn Guillen, Hector Terrones, Teresa Cano de Terrones, Mario J. Simirgiotis, Jan Hájek, José Cheel, Beatriz Sepulveda and Carlos Areche
Plants 2024, 13(9), 1213; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13091213 - 27 Apr 2024
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Abstract
Alternative solvents are being tested as green solvents to replace the traditional organic solvents used in both academy and industry. Some of these are already available, such as ethyl lactate, cyrene, limonene, glycerol, and others. This alternative explores eco-friendly processes for extracting secondary [...] Read more.
Alternative solvents are being tested as green solvents to replace the traditional organic solvents used in both academy and industry. Some of these are already available, such as ethyl lactate, cyrene, limonene, glycerol, and others. This alternative explores eco-friendly processes for extracting secondary metabolites from nature, thus increasing the number of unconventional extraction methods with lower environmental impact over conventional methods. In this context, the Peruvian Ambrosia arborescens was our model while exploring a microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) approach over maceration. The objective of this study was to perform a phytochemical study including UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS and the antioxidant activity of Ambrosia arborescens, using sustainable strategies by mixing both microwaves and ethyl lactate as a green solvent. The results showed that ethyl lactate/MAE (15.07%) achieved a higher extraction yield than methanol/maceration (12.6%). In the case of the isolation of psilostachyin, it was similar to ethyl lactate (0.44%) when compared to methanol (0.40%). Regarding UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS studies, the results were similar. Twenty-eight compounds were identified in the ethyl lactate/MAE and methanol/maceration extracts, except for the tentative identification of two additional amino acids (peaks 4 and 6) in the MeOH extract. In relation to the antioxidant assay, the activity of the ethyl lactate extract was a little higher than the methanol extract in terms of ORAC (715.38 ± 3.2) and DPPH (263.04 ± 2.8). This study on A. arborescens demonstrated that the unconventional techniques, such as MAE related to ethyl lactate, could replace maceration/MeOH for the extraction and isolation of metabolites from diverse sources. This finding showed the potential of unconventional methods with green solvents to provide eco-friendly methods based on green chemistry. Full article
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