Abstract
Ecdysteroids have been found in a variety of plants and have several valuable biological properties. Beta-ecdysone is the major biologically active ecdysteroid that can be isolated from Pfaffia glomerata roots. Pfaffia glomerata is a medicinal plant known in Brazil as ginseng, and this plant has been used as a substitute for Asian ginseng due their similar morphologies and bioactive properties. In this work, supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) using carbon dioxide (CO2) was used to obtain beta-ecdysone-rich extracts from Brazilian ginseng roots. The effects of pressure (20 and 30 MPa) and cosolvent amount (10, 15, 75 and 90% of Ethanol, EtOH) on the behavior of the overall extraction curve (OEC) and beta-ecdysone content were studied. Larger amounts of beta-ecdysone were obtained in shorter processing times using CO2: EtOH (85:15, v/v) as the extracting solvent at 20 MPa. Higher amounts of EtOH in the solvent mixture leads to increased extraction yield as well as increased beta-ecdysone content.
Highlights
Ecdysteroids are steroid hormones that are found in insects
Pfaffia glomeratais a medicinal plant known in Brazil as “Brazilian ginseng” and as “Suma” elsewhere; ithas been used as a substitute for “Asian” ginseng due their similar morphologies and bioactive properties
The kinetics of the supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) process can be characterized empirically by overall extraction curve (OEC), and kinetic parameters can be calculated by fitting the experimental data to a linear spline [18]
Summary
Ecdysteroids are steroid hormones that are found in insects. Ecdysteroids have been discovered in plants, and this discovery has initiated fruitful research. Ecdysteroids have been detected in over 120 plant families. The amount of ecdysteroids is an order of magnitude higher than in insects [1]. Plants and insects rarely have the same ecdysteroids; these bioactive compounds play different roles depending on their source. It is known that these steroids are present at all stages of development, regulating many biochemical and physiological process, whereas in plants, the function of ecdysteroids is still unknown. Ecdysteroids from plants, known as phytoecdysteroids, are apparently non-toxic to mammals and may have a number of beneficial pharmacological and medicinal applications [2]. Betaecdysone (Figure 1) is recognized as the major biologically active ecdysteroid in most invertebrate systems [3]
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