The plethora of natural organic compounds produced in plants by secondary metabolism comprise attractive ingredients for food, cosmetics and pharmacy due to their various beneficial biological properties. The identification and quantification of these target compounds in plants matrices is a challenging task, continuously requesting the development of more robust, efficient and sensitive instrumental analytical methods, most of which uses reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). This communication discusses fundamental and practical aspects of RP-HPLC employed for the analysis of plant secondary metabolites occurring in a variety of plant matrices, foods and cosmetics. Our studies have been mainly focused on phenolic compounds and on the influence of the mobile phase composition on the selective separation of these compounds extracted from a variety of plant tissues and commercial products. Appropriate selection of the mobile phase in RP-HPLC involves the evaluation of the equilibrium in solution that might take place between the analytes and the components of the liquid phase. The ionogenic nature of most of the considered compounds requires the control of pH, which is performed using suitable buffering agents incorporated into the mobile phase, whereas their elution is performed by varying the content of an organic solvent in the aqueous starting eluent. The constituents of the buffer solutions do not limit their action at controlling the protonic equilibrium of the ionogenic groups of the analytes in solution. They also might interact with the analytes, for examples by an ionpairing mechanism, with the result of altering their chromatographic retention, modulated by the chemical composition and concentration of the organic solvent, which progressively increases during the analysis in gradient elution mode. Practical applications of these studies to the analysis of biomolecules in complex matrices of plant origin are discussed too.
HPLC OF BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS IN COSMETIC AND FOOD MATRICES OF PLANT ORIGIN
Danilo Corradini;Isabella Nicoletti
2018
Abstract
The plethora of natural organic compounds produced in plants by secondary metabolism comprise attractive ingredients for food, cosmetics and pharmacy due to their various beneficial biological properties. The identification and quantification of these target compounds in plants matrices is a challenging task, continuously requesting the development of more robust, efficient and sensitive instrumental analytical methods, most of which uses reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). This communication discusses fundamental and practical aspects of RP-HPLC employed for the analysis of plant secondary metabolites occurring in a variety of plant matrices, foods and cosmetics. Our studies have been mainly focused on phenolic compounds and on the influence of the mobile phase composition on the selective separation of these compounds extracted from a variety of plant tissues and commercial products. Appropriate selection of the mobile phase in RP-HPLC involves the evaluation of the equilibrium in solution that might take place between the analytes and the components of the liquid phase. The ionogenic nature of most of the considered compounds requires the control of pH, which is performed using suitable buffering agents incorporated into the mobile phase, whereas their elution is performed by varying the content of an organic solvent in the aqueous starting eluent. The constituents of the buffer solutions do not limit their action at controlling the protonic equilibrium of the ionogenic groups of the analytes in solution. They also might interact with the analytes, for examples by an ionpairing mechanism, with the result of altering their chromatographic retention, modulated by the chemical composition and concentration of the organic solvent, which progressively increases during the analysis in gradient elution mode. Practical applications of these studies to the analysis of biomolecules in complex matrices of plant origin are discussed too.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
