Optimization of Betulinic Acid Extraction from Tecomella undulata Bark Using a Box-Behnken Design and Its Densitometric Validation

Betulinic acid (BA) is a pentacyclic triterpenoid acid obtained from the stem bark of Tecomella undulata Seem. (Bignoniaceae). Development of an efficient extraction method for the isolation of BA is important as it has a wide range of pharmacological activity. A Box-Behnken design (BBD) was used to...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Nahida Siddiqui, Vidhu Aeri
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2016-04-01
Series:Molecules
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/21/4/393
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Summary:Betulinic acid (BA) is a pentacyclic triterpenoid acid obtained from the stem bark of Tecomella undulata Seem. (Bignoniaceae). Development of an efficient extraction method for the isolation of BA is important as it has a wide range of pharmacological activity. A Box-Behnken design (BBD) was used to investigate the effect of extraction variables such as temperature (30–60 °C), time (4–8 h) and solvent to drug ratio (300–500 mL/100 g) on the maximization of BA yield and its quantification using validated densitometric high performance thin layer chromatography coupled with ultraviolet detection (HPTLC-VIS). A quadratic polynomial model was found to best fit the model with R2 = 0.99. The optimized Soxhlet extraction yielded 2.449% w/w of BA at a temperature 53.86 °C, time 6.38 h and solvent to drug ratio 371 mL/100 g. BA in Tecomella undulata bark was detected at Rf value of 0.65 at 510 nm using the solvent system toluene–ethyl acetate–glacial acetic acid (8.5:1.5:0.02 v/v/v). The analytical method was validated and the linear regression analysis reflects good linear relationship (R2 = 0.9902). Lower %RSD and SEM suggested that the developed HPTLC-VIS method was precise, accurate and robust. Therefore, these economical techniques are very efficient and promising for the extraction and quantification of pharmaceutically important BA.
ISSN:1420-3049