A novel strategy for isolation and purification of fucoxanthinol and fucoxanthin from the diatom Nitzschia laevis

In this study, the microalga Nitzschia laevis (N. laevis) can accumulate a marine carotenoid fucoxanthinol. In particular, fucoxanthinol was firstly isolated from microalgae, accompanied by its derivative fucoxanthin. The identification and quantification of fucoxanthinol and fucoxanthin were determined by ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled to photodiode array detector-quadrupole/travelling-wave ion mobility mass spectrometry/time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-PDA-TWIMS-QTOF-MS). Furthermore, a cost-effective approach mediated with solid-phase extraction (SPE) and thin-layer chromatography (TLC) technique was used to isolate and purify fucoxanthinol and fucoxanthin from the extracts of N. laevis. This two-step method can obtain 98% fucoxanthinol and 95% fucoxanthin, with the recovery efficiencies of around 85% for fucoxanthinol and 70% for fucoxanthin, respectively. Moreover, 1H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques were adopted to record the purified compounds for supporting the above results. In all, the developed method has a promising potential to purify fucoxanthinol and fucoxanthin of microalgae for food and pharmaceutical applications.