Advantages of contemporary extraction techniques for the extraction of bioactive constituents from black elderberry (Sambucus nigra L.) flowers
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Nowadays, in many branches of industry which produce and use plant extracts, special attention is directed to the development of extraction techniques which are economically sustainable, but also environmentally-friendly (Chemat et al., 2012; Cunha and Fernandes, 2018). The commonly used extraction techniques tend to be replaced due to the recognized drawbacks, such as high consumption of solvents and plant material, usage of organic solvents, high energy consumption, etc. The new approaches should offer technologies which are able to reduce the use of organic solvents, minimize energy consumption, enable faster processing of samples and cost-effective production of high-quality extracts (Vazquez-Roig and Picó, 2015). Consequently, different techniques have arisen, but the special place in scientific research in the process of isolating bioactive compounds from plants is occupied by microwave-assisted (MAE) and ultrasonic-assisted (UAE) extractions. These techniques enhance the extraction efficiency by unique phenomena, which are occurring during the processes – in UAE it is cavitation, while in MAE it is an interaction between microwaves and polar molecules in the media. Both UAE and MAE are suitable for the extraction of plant bioactive molecules such as polyphenols, providing extracts with a higher concentration of active compounds and enhanced biological activity. Different studies have already demonstrated the advantages of these techniques over conventional ones (Belwal et al., 2017; Rao and Rathod, 2017).
At the same time, there is an increasing interest, by both science and industry, for the wild growing plant species, due to their simple cultivation, high availability, and abundance with secondary metabolites. The Balkan Peninsula is rich in a large number of wild growing plants, and one of the most abundant is black elderberry (Sambucus nigra L.), which belongs to the Adoxaceae family. Its common names are elder, elderberry, black elder, European elder, European elderberry and European black elderberry (ITIS, 2016). All parts of this plant (flower, bark, leaf, and fruits) are the rich sources of dietary phytochemicals, such as carbohydrates, lipids, terpenoids, flavonoids, phenolic acids, alkaloids, etc. (Agalar (2019)). Elderflowers have been used in traditional medicine for treatment of inflammation, skin disorders, diuretic, colds, fever and other respiratory disturbances (Blumenthal et al., 2000; Weiss and Fintelmann, 2000; EMA, 2008). What is more, scientific evidence implied that elderberry flowers can be used both in the prevention and therapy of various diseases, due to the expressed anti-inflammatory (Olejnik et al., 2015), antioxidant (Dawidowicz et al., 2006) and antimicrobial (Arjoon et al., 2012) activity. Apart from traditional medicine, the elderberry flower is often used in the traditional diet, usually for the preparation of beverages, such as tea or juice.
What is astonishing is the fact that although the products of elderberry flowers are very popular in everyday, traditional use, there is not a single commercial product on the market. On the other hand, the rich chemical composition and presence of a large number of bioactive ingredients, as well as a multitude of flowers on the plant tree, clearly indicate the potential of elderflower use in various industries that are related to pharmaceutical, cosmetic or nutritional functional products. For this purpose, obtaining highly potent bioactive extracts is the first and the most important step. Therefore, the goal of this study was to investigate different extraction techniques in order to obtain highly bioactive S. nigra flower extracts. In the frame of this paper, elderberry extracts were prepared by one conventional - maceration (MAC) and two modern (UAE and MAE) techniques in the presence of different solvents (50% EtOH or H2O) and compared in terms of their chemical composition and bioactivity. To the best of our knowledge, the ability of the obtained extracts to inhibit acetylcholinesterase, butyrylcholinesterase, tyrosinase, and lipase was explored for the first time in this study.
Section snippets
Plant materials
Sambucus nigra L. plant material was collected in June 2017 in Pljevlja (Montenegro). The specimen voucher (S. nigra L., No. 2-1512) was prepared and identified by Milica Rat, Ph.D., and deposited at the Herbarium of the Department of Biology and Ecology (BUNS Herbarium), University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Sciences, The Republic of Serbia.
After drying the plant material was grounded using a laboratory mill and was stored according to the procedure described by Vujanović et al., 2019. The
Total bioactive constituents
The flower of S. nigra is a very attractive and insufficiently exploited source of highly bioactive secondary metabolites, such as polyphenols. Only a few publications mention the qualitative and quantitative content of polyphenols in elderflowers (Christensen et al. (2010); Mikulic-Petkovsek et al., 2015; Thi Ho et al., 2016). One of the challenges in this study was the fact that due to the high variety of secondary metabolites, there is no single solvent or optimal extraction technique for
Conclusion
In the present study, the influence of conventional (MAC) and modern extraction techniques (MAE and UAE) on the process of isolating biologically active substances from elderflowers were investigated. MAE proved to be the most efficient extraction technique while 50% EtOH was a better solvent than H2O. Although MAE has been favored, the other applied techniques can also be of importance, since the amounts of the isolated compounds in all the cases were considerable. All of the extracts were
Acknowledgments
The authors of this study are grateful to Dr. Milica Rat, University of Novi Sad Faculty of Sciences, Department of Biology and Ecology, Republic of Serbia, for the support in terms of confirmation and deposition of Sambucus nigra L. at the BUNS Herbarium.
This research study was supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia (Grant No. 172058).
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