Simultaneous Determination of Cyclitols and Sugars Following a Comprehensive Investigation of 40 Plants

Abstract

Due to the important features of widely unexplored cyclitols, a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative study is needed. Moreover, measuring the possible available amounts of identified components in plant material represents a stringent need, due to their importance in phytomedicine and their use in food. The purpose of this study was to realize an extended investigation mainly of cyclitols, but of sugars and sugar alcohols as well, from natural sources. Thus, 17 target compounds (7 cyclitols and 2 sugar alcohols and 8 sugars) extracted from medicinal and edible plants are reported. All detected components were simultaneous separated in just one chromatographic run, using a single GC column. A number of 52 sources coming from 40 species were studied. Thus, we report 37 new sources of cyclitols. Moreover, almost for all cyclitols, the richest source was not investigated previously. Therefore, the obtained results can represent a valuable material for food, pharmaceutical, medical, or cosmetic industry interested in the use of cyclitols.