Pressurized liquid extraction of coumarins from fruits of Heracleum leskowii with application of solvents with different polarity under increasing temperature

Abstract

Coumarins are nowadays an important group of organic compounds from natural sources that are useful in a number of fields. Because they possess different pharmacological properties, finding the proper extraction conditions for their separation from plant matrices is a very important step. In this report Pressurized Liquid Extraction (PLE) under different temperature conditions and with different types of extraction solvents were tested. As a matrix, fruits of Heracleum leskowii have been used. A simple reverse phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method (RP-HPLC) coupled with a photodiode array detector (DAD) has been developed for separation and quantitative analysis of the main coumarins. Umbelliferone, xanthotoxin, angelicin, isopimpinellin, bergapten, imperatorin and isoimperatorin were investigated. Bergapten and imperatorin were dominant in almost all extracts in the range of 9.92 ± 0.02-20.93 ± 0.06 and 12.19 ± 0.98-19.07 ± 0.03 mg/100 g, respectively. Dichloromethane and methanol were chosen as the most proper suitable solvents for extraction of coumarins. By increasing the temperature the amount of extracted coumarins increases in petroleum ether and dichloromethane extracts. © 2012 by the authors.