Abstract
Erica australis plants have been used in infusions and folk medicine for years for its diuretic and antiseptic properties and even for the treatment of infections. In addition, a recently published thorough study on this species has demonstrated its antioxidant, antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, anticarcinogenic and even antitumoral activities. These properties have been associated with the high content of anthocyanins in E. australis leaves and flowers. The aim of the present research is to optimize an ultrasound-assisted extraction methodology for the recovery of the anthocyanins present in E. australis flowers. For that purpose, a Box Behnken design with response surface methodology was employed, and the influence of four variables at different values was determined: namely, the composition of the extraction solvents (0–50% MeOH in water), the pH level of those solvents (3–7), the extraction temperature (10–70 °C), and the sample:solvent ratio (0.5 g:10 mL–0.5 g:20 mL). UHPLC-UV-vis has been employed to quantify the two major anthocyanins detected in the samples. The extraction optimum conditions for 0.5 g samples were: 20 mL of solvent (50% MeOH:H2O) at 5 pH, with a 15 min extraction time at 70 °C. A precision study was performed and the intra-day and inter-day relative standard deviations (RSDs) obtained were 3.31% and 3.52%, respectively. The developed methodology has been successfully applied to other Erica species to validate the suitability of the method for anthocyanin extraction.
Highlights
The Mediterranean heather Erica australis L. is a medium-sized, evergreen shrub of the Ericaceae family
The final aim of this study is to propose a novel extraction method of anthocyanins using Ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) that allows to determine the anthocyanin content in Erica australis L. flower and other Erica species for different purposes
The flower samples were extracted under the required conditions and analyzed by UHPLC-UV-vis (520 nm) and two major anthocyanins were determined
Summary
The Mediterranean heather Erica australis L. is a medium-sized, evergreen shrub of the Ericaceae family Plants in this species can reach up to 2 m high with profuse flowering of distinctive 6.0–8.5 mm long, pink to rose-purple flowers. They can be mainly found in Mediterranean heathlands of the W Iberian Peninsula and NW tip of Africa [1,2]. This species readily recovers from fire, both by the resprouting of surviving plants and by seedling recruitment from a permanent soil seed-bank [3,4,5]. E. australis has been extensively used as infusions, especially in Moroccan and Turkish folk medicine because of their demonstrated diuretic and antiseptic properties, and even to directly treat infected wounds [6,7]
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