Bioactive extraction

Magnolol is a bioactivator extracted from Magnolia officinalis with protective effects on cholinergic neurons. Magnolol restores the impaired abilities of learning and memory induced by scopolamine, and AChE, NOS, and SOD activities in mice [277]. 

The good old days of grind and find —when nearly every organism contained new and interesting molecules— are fast disappearing. Most bioactive extracts now contain only known compounds and developing rapid methods to avoid duplication of earlier research has become a prionty (2). 

Isolation of potential anticancer compounds from bioactive extracts involves bioactivity-guided fractionation. The DNA-damaging natural products encountered in our studies were extracted by MEK and/or methanol, and the general methodology which we have employed in our bioassay-directed fractionation of these extracts is schematically presented in Fig. 7. These fractionations involved solvent-solvent partition, Sephadex LH-20 gel filtration, normal phase and reversed-phase (RP) column, preparative thin-layer and high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). Silica gel chromatography was employed only if bioactive compounds were found to be stable under these mildly acidic conditions. 

Bio-assay guided fractionation of the methanolic extract of the African climbing shrub Stephania dinklagei contains six bioactive alkaloids, among... 

The aerial part of sage was successively extracted with water, potassium oxalate, DMSO and KOH, and gave rise to different fractions with bioactivity. Partial purification of the water extract gave rise to a polydisperse fraction called A, that based on the monosaccharide composition, IR, and NMR, was thought to be composed of arabinogalactans associated with the highly ramified rhamnogalacturonans core. Fracfion B, exfracfed wifh oxalate, was... 

Figure 4.4 The general protocol for information extraction from an herbal text (A-E) is paired with case examples from our work with the Ambonese Herbal by Rumphius. (A) Text is digitized. (B) Through either manual reading or automated extraction the plant name(s), plant part(s), and symptoms or disorders are identified. (C) These extracted data are then updated (as necessary) to reflect current names of the plants, using the International Plant Names Index (IPNI), and the pharmacological function(s) of the described medicinal plants are extrapolated from the mentioned symptoms and disorders. (D) The current botanical names are queried against a natural products database such as the NAPRALERT database to determine whether the plant has been previously examined. (E) Differential tables are generated that separate the plants examined in the literature from plants that may warrant further examination for bioactivity. (Adapted from Trends in Pharmacological Sciences, with permission.) See color plate.

NWUHA v (2000) Novel studies on membrane extraction of bioactive components of green tea in organic solvents part I , J Food Engineering, 44 (4), 233-8. 

Carotenoid-rich extracts can be used for coloring purposes and serve as good sources of bioactive compounds. Breeding or genetic manipulation can substantially increase the carotenoid contents of plants, resulting in carotenoid-rich foods that can be applied either as direct sonrces of nutrients or as raw materials for extracting natnral yellow to red colorants. 

Supercritical fluid extraction — During the past two decades, important progress was registered in the extraction of bioactive phytochemicals from plant or food matrices. Most of the work in this area focused on non-polar compounds (terpenoid flavors, hydrocarbons, carotenes) where a supercritical (SFE) method with CO2 offered high extraction efficiencies. Co-solvent systems combining CO2 with one or more modifiers extended the utility of the SFE-CO2 system to polar and even ionic compounds, e.g., supercritical water to extract polar compounds. This last technique claims the additional advantage of combining extraction and destruction of contaminants via the supercritical water oxidation process."... 

Anand, R. et al.. Comparison of extraction techniques for extraction of bioactive molecules from Hypericum perforatum L. plant, J. Chromatogr. Sci., 43, 530, 2005. 

Carmen Socaciu was bom in Cluj-Napoca, Romania and earned a BSc in chemistry in 1976, an MSc in 1977, and a PhD in 1986 from the University Babes-Bolyai in Cluj-Napoca, an important academic centre located in the Transylvania region. Dr. Socaciu worked as a researcher in medical and cellular biochemistry for more than 10 years, and became a lecturer in 1990 and full professor in 1998 in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine (USAMV) in Cluj-Napoca. She extended her academic background in pure chemistry (synthesis and instrumental analysis) to the life sciences (agrifood chemistry and cellular biochemistry). Her fields of competence are directed especially toward natural bioactive phytochemicals (carotenoids, phenolics, flavonoids), looking to advanced methods of extraction and analysis and to their in vitro actions on cellular metabolism, their effects as functional food ingredients, and their impacts on health. 

The Lenina bloassay, as previously described (13), Is particularly useful for the determination of bioactive fractions collected during HPLC of extracts from allelopathlc plants. 

Some inhibitory mixtures of metabolites have been extracted from Palmer amaranth and ragweed, and several isolated compounds have shown marked bioactivity in the germination assays. Currently, work is continuing on the identified compounds and root exudates from Palmer amaranth, as well as the constituents of soil containing Palmer amaranth residues. 

Ultrasonically assisted extraction is also widely used for the isolation of effective medical components and bioactive principles from plant material [195]. The most common application of low-intensity ultrasound is as an analytical technique for providing information about the physico-chemical properties of foods, such as in the analysis of edible fats and oils (oil composition, oil content, droplet size of emulsions, and solid fat content) [171,218]. Ultrasonic techniques are also used for fluids characterisation [219]. 

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