Optimization of Solvent Systems for the Extraction of Vitexin as the Major Bioactive Flavonoid in Prosopis farcta

Abstract

Prosopis farcta, a plant belongs to the mimosoideae, is characterized by a very wide spectrum of various bioactive and medical constituents. Vitexin, the marker flavonoid found in Prosopis, has potent and broad antitumour efficacy in preclinical models. Many studies had been done for the isolation of flavonoids (vitexin) by completely different chromatographically methodology. During this study, vitexin was isolated from Prosopis farcta by 6 different extraction methods in which parameters as the type, concentration and pH of the extracting solvents considered. Among different solvent systems used, methanol-water (40%, containing acetic acid 0.5%) was found to be the best solvent generating the highest yield (0.554 mg∙g−1 DW) from Prosopis leaves. The present work suggests an efficient method for estimation the greatest content of vitexin analyzed by HPLC technique and introduces Prosopis farcta as a suitable source of this flavonoid with several pharmacological properties.