Determination of Lactones

In most cases, uronic acids are liberated from acidic polysaccharides by hydrolysis leading to irreproducible concomitant formation of lactones. Several methods to circumvent this problem have been published describing conversion of the uronic acid into methyl esters followed by reduction with borohydride or borodeuteride reagents and subsequent hydrolysis and GC-MS detection [129]. Other techniques are based on the liberation and quantification of carbon dioxide. Direct determination of uronic acid residues in hydrolyzates has frequently been performed according to colorimetric assays, which are rather insensitive and have thus mostly been replaced by high-performance anion exchange chromatography (HP-AEC) methods [130-132]. 

Due to the inherent chemical propensity of lactones with respect to hydrolysis and reformation, the determination has mostly relied on the total quantification of carboxyl groups (assuming a complete hydrolysis of lactones under alkaline conditions and negligible regeneration under acidic condi- 

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Fitchet, M. (1990) Establishment of Piper nigrum in vitro. Acta Horticulture, 275, 285—291. Gan2era, M. and Khan, I. (1999) Anal5 tical techniques for the determination of lactones in Piper methysticum Forst. Chromatographia, 50, 649—653. 

Figure 3.7 shows some early examples of this type of analysis (39), illustrating the GC determination of the stereoisomeric composition of lactones in (a) a fruit drink (where the ratio is racemic, and the lactone is added artificially) and (b) a yoghurt, where the non-racemic ratio indicates no adulteration. Technically, this separation was enabled on a short 10 m slightly polar primary column coupled to a chiral selective cyclodextrin secondary column. Both columns were independently temperature controlled and the transfer cut performed by using a Deans switch, with a backflush of the primary column following the heart-cut. 

In any form of analysis it is important to determine the integrity of the system and confirm that artefacts are not produced as a by-product of the analytical procedure. This is particularly important in enantiomeric analysis, where problems such as the degradation of lactone and furanon species in transfer lines has been reported (40). As chromatography unions, injectors, splitters, etc. become more stable and greater degrees of deactivation are possible, problems of this kind will hopefully be reduced. Some species, however, such as methyl butenol generated from natural emissions, still remain a problem, undergoing dehydration to yield isoprene on some GC columns. 

Determination of chiral-y-lactones from raw flavour extract of strawberries and other-fruit-containing foods and beverages... 

Determination of enantiomeric distributionof the lactone flavour compounds of fruits... 

Several applications involve the removal of large amounts of triglicerides, including the determination of wax esters in olive oil (39), sterols and other minor components in oils and fats (40, 41), PCBs in fish (42), lactones in food products (43, 44), pesticides (45), and mineral oil products in food (46,47). Grob et al. (47) studied the capacity of silica gel HPLC columns for retaining fats, and concluded that the capacity of such columns is proportional to their size, although the fractions of the volumes that are then transferred to the GC system grow proportionally with the column capacity. For these reasons, 2-3 mm i.d. LC columns are to be preferred for LC-GC applications. 

A. Artho and K. Grob, Determination of y-lactones added to foods as flavours. How far-must nature-identical flavours be identical with the nature , Mitt. Gebiete Lebensm. Hyg. 81 544-558 (1990). 

An enzyme immunoassay technique has been employed for measuring endosulfan and its degradation products (i.e., endosulfan diol, endosulfan sulfate, endosulfan ether, and endosulfan lactone) in water at 3 ppb (Chau and Terry 1972 Musial et al. 1976). However, this technique is not currently in use in environmental residue analysis. Further research into this technique could produce a rapid, rehable, and sensitive method for identifying contaminated areas posing a risk to human health. No additional methods for detecting endosulfan in environmental media appear to be necessary at this time. However, methods for the determination of endosulfan degradation products are needed. 

Vitamin Bg and related compoimds (Figure 10.2) were quantitatively separated by preparative TLC on silica gel H. After elution, the pyridoxic acid lactone method was employed for fluorimetric determination of the concentration of the vitamin forms involved [8]. Table 10.2 shows Revalues obtained for various forms of vitamin Bg, using several solvent systems. The solvent selected, ethyl acetate/pyridine/water (2 1 2, v/v), gave excellent separation of pyridoxamine, pyridoxic acid, and pyri-doxine together with pyridoxal. 

Like in gangliosides, lactones might be found in some bacterial capsular polysaccharides containing 1-carboxyethylsubstituents. But their identification remains problematic due to the conditions of isolation and preparation of analytic samples. To facilitate their detection by NMR, and in order to determine if the formation or hydrolysis of lactones occurred during analytical procedures, synthetic model substances, 2,3- and/or 3,4-lactones based on gluco-12, manno-13, and galactopyranosides 14 were prepared and characterized by NMR spectroscopy (Fig. 2).20 The relative lactonisation rates in acetic acid-fi 4 and hydrolysis rates in buffered D20 were evaluated. 

Finally, when L-sorbose (81) was treated with hydrogen cyanide, a branched-chain, sugar lactone was formed which was characterized by converting it into a diacetal.127 An X-ray structure determination of this material revealed it to be 2,21 5,6-di-0-isopropylidene-[2-C-(hy-droxymethyl)-L-gulono-l,4-lactone] (82). However, all subsequent efforts to prepare 82 resulted in the formation of 2,3 5,6-di-0-isopropyli-dene-2-C-(hydroxymethyl)-L-gulono-l,4-lactone (83). 

The capsules contained a mean of 82 mg feverfew and thus the level of activity calculated as parthenolide can be estimated as 0.67%. Other studies quote 0.87% sesquiterpene lactones calculated as parthenolide [27] and 0.25-0.30% of active (antimicrobial) material [33]. Bohlmann s extraction of individual components from the dried plant yielded 116 mg sesquiterpene lactones/kg dried feverfew which amounts to less than 0.01 % [17]. Another extraction yielded 330 mg endoperoxides/kg and 56 mg canin/kg alone [19] which would amount to a level of sesquiterpene lactones of at least 0.04%. Thus, the level of sesquiterpene lactones appears to vary with different sources of the plant and this could have been due to a number of factors including the conditions in which feverfew was grown, the season in which it was picked and the way in which it was stored. Another important determinant of the parthenolide content of feverfew appears to be the geographical location. A recent survey of commercial preparations found that all the North American commercial products tested contained less that 0.1% parthenolide, wheras much higher values were obtained for British products. A minimum level of 0.2% parthenolide in commercial products has been proposed by the Health Protection Branch of Health and Welfare Canada [71]. 

Patarapanich C, Laungcholatan S, Mahaverawat N, Chaichantipayuth C, Pummangura S. (2007) HPLC determination of active diterpene lactones from Andrographis paniculata Nees planted in various seasons and regions in Thailand. Thai J Pharm Sci 31 91-99. 

In order to determine whether the ROP of lactones into the corresponding aliphatic polyesters is possible, thermodynamics have to be taken into account. The ROP follows the micro-reversibility rule according to (1) ... 

The Baeyer-Villiger process for conversion of open-chain ketones to esters, or cyclic ketones to lactones by a peracid involves an intermediate a-hydroxyperester (235) step, as shown in equation 83. Determination of 235 in the reaction mixture involves selective reduction of the peroxyacid with diphenyl sulfide and reduction of 235 with excess iodide, followed by titration of the liberated iodine. The presence of various transition metal ions may affect the determination by accelerating the final step of the synthetic process, thus... 

Hu, G. et al., Simultaneous determination of total flavones and total lactones in ginkgo extracts by near infrared spectroscopy, Fenxi Huaxue, 32, 1061, 2004. 

Enantioselective reduction of prostereogenic anhydrides la-g with 4 equivalents of chiral reducing reagent, obtained from lithium aluminum hydride, enantiomerically pure (M)-, 1 -bi-2-naph-thol and ethanol, provides easier access to chiral lactones as exemplified by 3a-g.10 la. Absolute configurations of lactones 3 are based on chemical correlation and the ee value for 3b is determined by HPLC on the chiral column Chiralcel OB-H (Daicel Chemical Industries, Ltd.)101b. 

Overall yield of lactone. m Determined by H NMR. " After the hydrolysis step R1 = NH2. ° After the hydrolysis step R2 = (CH2)6OH. 

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