Development of extraction and microextraction techniques to characterize leaves of different cultivars of Prunus domestica L.

Despite the large number of synthetic pharmaceuticals, herbal products contain high amount of biological active compounds with a less harmful effect on human body than their synthetic counterparts. In the present work, leaves of different cultivars of Prunus domestica L were analyzed for the establishment of phenolic pattern in order to use them as potential sources of antioxidants in the pharmaceutical and food industry. Modern extraction procedures such as microwave extraction (MAE) [1], dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction [2] and sugaring-out liquid–liquid extraction technics were optimized in order to obtain full multi-component panel of phenolic compounds followed by HPLC-PDA analysis [3]. The best extraction was achieved using MAE in water:methanol (30:70) medium under microwave irradiation at 80°C for 13 min 8 s and it was applied for quantitative analysis of phenolic compounds in fourteen cultivars of P. domestica. The total amount of phenolic compounds varies from 101411.8–415772.3 μg/g extract. The antioxidant capacity of Prunus leaves was tested via several methods (DPPH, TEAC, etc.), as well as by assessing their total bioactive components (phenolics and flavonoids). The highest total phenolic contents were obtained for cultivars Ialomița (139.66 mgGAE/g extract), Alutus (139.15 mgGAE/g extract), and Tita (135.30 mgGAE/g extract). These findings suggest that leaves of P. domestica could be considered as potential sources of bioactive compounds for the design of novel phytopharmaceuticals. Acknowledgments Authors thank for financial support MIUR ex 60%, University “G. d’Annunzio” of Chieti – Pescara, Chieti, Italy, Scientific Grant Agency of the MESRS of the Slovak Republic (VEGA 1/0010/15), International Visegrad Fund. References: 1. Mollica A., Locatelli M., Macedonio G., Carradori S., Sobolev A.P., De Salvador R.F., Monti S.M., Buonanno M., Zengin G., Angeli A., Supuran C.T. (2016) Microwave-assisted extraction, HPLC analysis, and inhibitory effects on carbonic anhydrase I, II, VA, and VII isoforms of 14 blueberry Italian cultivars, J. Enzyme Inhib. Med. Chem. 6366: 1-6. 2. Campillo N., Viñas P., Šandrejová J., Andruch V. (2017) Ten years of dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction and derived techniques, Appl. Spectrosc. Rev. 52: 267-415 3. Zengin G., Menghini L., Malatesta L., De Luca E., Bellagamba G., Uysal S., Aktumsek A., Locatelli M. (2016) Comparative study of biological activities and multicomponent pattern of two wild Turkish species: Asphodeline anatolica and Potentilla speciosa, J. Enzyme Inhib. Med. Chem. 31: 203-208.