One-step separation of terpenoids from leaves extracts of Solanum cernuum by high-performance countercurrent chromatography

ABSTRACTSolanum cernuum is a native shrub from Brazil that has been used as medicine since the nineteenth century. Although it has been utilized for a long time, there are few studies regarding its chemical composition and it motivated us to investigate this species. The dried leaves of S. cernuum were extracted with methanol and the obtained extract was further partitioned with different organic solvents. As part of our investigation, the n-hexane fraction was submitted to CCC with a nonaqueous solvent system composed of hexane, acetonitrile, and ethyl acetate (5:5:1, v/v/v). Three terpenoids were obtained by one-step separation and identified as 24-oxo-31-norcycloartanone (22.8 mg), lupeol (9.4 mg), and cycloeucalenone (13.4 mg). Complementarily, the solvents system used on the separation have had their compositions determined by gas chromotography–flame ionization detector (GC-FID).KEYWORDS: Countercurrent chromatographygas chromatographysolanaceaeSolanum cernuumsolvent systemterpenoids Additional informationFunding The authors are grateful to FAPERJ for financial support and to CAPES for a scholarship.