Planta Med 2011; 77 - PG65
DOI: 10.1055/s-0031-1282549

Efficient isolation of bioactive constituents from Greek Fabaceae species through elaboration of counter-current chromatography (CCC) approaches

A Angelis 1, A Cheilari 2, N Aligiannis 3, A Skaltsounis 4
  • 1Department of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis Zografou, Athens 15771, Greece
  • 2Department of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis Zografou, Athens 15771, Greece
  • 3Department of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis Zografou, Athens 15771, Greece
  • 4Department of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis Zografou, Athens 15771, Greece

Fabaceae family contains plants that are characterized by significant biological activities. The main edible plants of this family constitute an important part of the Mediterranean diet and contain secondary metabolites with considerable estrogenic, antioxidant and chemopreventing activity1. Recent years CCC has become a method of choice in separation and purification of natural products. The advantage of this method is the ability to separate substances from large volume of crude and complex extracts which is crucial in further analysis as far as identification and biological control activity (2,3).

In the present study the application of CCC is demonstrated as a main separation technique in the phytochemical analysis of seven Fabaceae species growing in Greece.The analysis of active extracts of Vicia faba L., Lotus siliquosus L., Tetragonolobus purpureus Moench and Genista hassertiana (Bald.) Buchegger took place by of line coupling of CCC technique with sephadex column or preparative HPLC. In the case of Lotus edulis L., Lathyrus laxiflorus (Desf.) Kuntze, and Genista halacsyi Heldr. the direct isolation of active compounds (flavonoids, isoflavones and phenolic acids) was achieved from the complex extracts using dual mode or gradient mode CCC. The purity and identity of isolated compounds was confirmed by NMR spectroscopy.

It is worth noting that the phytochemical analysis of L. siliquosus, T. purpureus and G. hassertiana is presented for the first time.

In conclusion, it is clearly indicated that counter-current chromatography is a valuable technique and can be successfully employed for rapid and effective separation of natural compounds from crude active extracts of Fabaceae species.

References: 1. Spanou C et al (2008)J Agric Food Chem 56: 6967–6976.

2. Bertoth A et al. (2009) Pure Appl Chem 81(2): 355–387.

3. Sutherland IA et al. (2009)J Chromatogr A 1216: 740–753.