Micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography of limonoid glucosides from citrus seeds

Phenolics in cereals, fruits and vegetables: Occurrence, extraction and analysis

Consumption of plant foods, particularly fruits, vegetables and cereal grains is encouraged because they render beneficial health effects. Phenolics and polyphenolics are among the most desirable food bioactives because of their antioxidant activity, brought about by a number of pathways, or due to other mechanisms. The analysis of phenolics and polyphenolics requires their extraction possible purification and structure elucidation. This overview provides a cursory account of the source, extraction and analysis of phenolics in fruits, vegetables and cereals.

Extraction parameters and capillary electrophoresis analysis of limonin glucoside and phlorin in citrus byproducts

Limonin glucoside (LG) and phlorin were extracted from citrus fruit tissues and assayed by capillary electrophoresis (CE). LG was determined in dried [1.20 +/- 0.10 mg of dry weight (dw)] and wet peel residues (1.16 +/- 0.04 mg of dw), orange juice finisher pulp (0.58 +/- 0.03 mg of dw), dried grapefruit seeds (2.70 +/- 0.15 mg of dw), and 50 degrees Brix molasses (2225 +/- 68 mg/L). Phlorin was purified from orange peel residue and grapefruit albedo, and concentrations were determined in some citrus products. Phlorin and LG were extracted from residues with water/pectinase or with water solutions of methanol and ethanol. Efficient LG extraction from grapefruit seeds (2.40 +/- 0.15 mg/g) was achieved with 50-65% methanol, solvent polarity P' approximately equal to 7-8. Extracts were purified and concentrated by adsorptive resins and HPLC to obtain 95% pure compounds of LG and phlorin. CE analysis did not require extract purification beyond filtration. LG and phlorin migrated as anions in electropherograms containing peaks representing other citrus flavonoids and limonoid glucosides.

Coupling continuous separation techniques to capillary electrophoresis

One of the weak points of capillary electrophoresis is the need to implement rigorously sample pretreatment because its great impact on the quality of the qualitative and quantitative results provided. One of the approaches to solve this problem is through the symbiosis of automatic continuous flow systems (CFSs) and capillary electrophoresis (CE). In this review a systematic approach to CFS-CE coupling is presented and discussed. The design of the corresponding interface depends on three factors, namely: (a) the characteristics of the CFS involved which can be non-chromatographic and chromatographic; (b) the type of CE equipment: laboratory-made or commercially available; and (c) the type of connection which can be in-line (on-capillary), on-line or mixed off/on-line. These are the basic criteria to qualify the hyphenation of CFS (solid-phase extraction, dialysis, gas diffusion, evaporation, direct leaching) with CE described so far and applied to determine a variety of analytes in many different types of samples. A critical discussion allows one to demonstrate that this symbiosis is an important topic in research and development, besides separation and detection, to consolidate CE as a routine analytical tool.

Determination of phenolic constituents in citrus samples by on-line coupling of a flow system with capillary electrophoresis

Phenolic compounds extracted from different citrus were determined. Calibration, extraction, elution, and introduction into the sample vial was carried out automatically by a continuous flow system (CFS) coupled to capillary electrophoresis (CE) equipment via a programmable arm. The only manual operation was the centrifugation of the sample to remove the pulp. The supernatant solutions were introduced into the CFS-CE system. A C-18 minicolumn coupled into the CFS was used to perform cleanup of the samples. The analytes were eluted from the minicolumn using methanol. Quantitative analysis was carried out by the standard addition method. The method presented allows a fast, quantitative, and reproducible determination of six main phenolic compounds in citrus samples, with precision in the range of 3.0-6.5%, expressed as relative standard deviations.

Pharmaceutical applications of micelles in chromatography and electrophoresis

This review surveys the use of micelles as separation media in chromatography and electrophoresis. Applications to pharmaceuticals whose molecular masses are relatively small are focused on in this review. In high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), chromatography using micelles and reversed-phase stationary phases such as octadecylsilylized silica gel (ODS) columns is known as micellar liquid chromatography (MLC). The main application of MLC to pharmaceutical analysis is the same as in ion-pair chromatography using alkylsulfonate or tetraalkylammonium. In most cases, selectivity is much improved compared with other short alkyl chain ion-pairing agents such as pentanesulfonate or octanesulfonate. Direct plasma/serum injection can be successful in MLC. Separation of small ions is also successful by using gel filtration columns and micellar solutions. In electrophoresis, especially capillary electrophoresis (CE), micelles are used as pseudo-stationary phases in capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE). This mode is called micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC). Most of the drug analysis can be performed by using the MEKC mode because of its wide applicability. Enantiomer separation, separation of amino acids and closely related peptides, separation of very complex mixtures, determination of drugs in biological samples etc. as well as separation of electrically neutral drugs can be successfully achieved by MEKC. Microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography (MEEKC), in which surfactants are also used in forming the microemulsion, is successful for the separation of electrically neutral drugs as in MEKC. This review mainly describes the typical applications of MLC and MEKC for the analysis of pharmaceuticals.