Planta Med 2014; 80 - P2O18
DOI: 10.1055/s-0034-1395011

Experimental design as a tool to evaluate coumarin from Dipteryx odorata (Aubl.) Willd seeds

S Silva 1, H Silva 1, F Pastore Junior 2, S Moraes 1, M de Lourdes Moraes 1
  • 1São Paulo Federal University-UNIFESP, Grupo de Análises Químicas Aplicadas, Rua Prof. Artur Riedel, 275, Eldorado – CEP 09972 – 270, Diadema, São Paulo, Brazil
  • 2Brasília Federal University-UnB, Laboratório de Tecnologia Química, Brasília, Distrito Federal, Brazil

Dipteryx odorata (known as cumaru) has high commercial value in northern Brazil due to elevated content of coumarin present on seeds (3 – 10% by weight) [1], which is used in the food, cosmetic and related industries to impart a pleasant fragrance to cakes, preserves, tobacco, soaps and liqueurs [2]. In this work we employed an experimental design in order to verify the extraction efficiency of coumarin from seeds of cumaru. A Simplex Centroid design [3] was chosen considering the better precision and the minor errors of the model. Simulations were conducted for linear, quadratic, full cubic and special cubic models. The modeling was design with three variables: water, ethanol and ethyl acetate as extraction solvent and the dependent variable was the concentration of coumarin. A high-performance liquid chromatography method with diodearray detection (HPLC-DAD) was developed and validated using acetonitrile/water (40:60 v/v) as mobile phase, C18 column and detection at 274nm. The results showed that the solvents act synergistically on the coumarin extraction and the best result was obtained using water 0.15%, methanol 0.20% and ethyl acetate 0.65% as extraction solvent; however ethyl acetate is the largest contributor to the response intensity. Full Cubic model was the more adequate to describe the response surface for extraction of coumarin showing a total error of 3.67%. The estimated response chart demonstrated the validity of the adopted model, which is an important parameter in terms of validation of the method since it allows, for example, estimating better detection and quantification limits.

Keywords: Dipteryx odorata, coumarin, HPLC, experimental design

References:

[1] Tropical plant database, http://www.rain-tree.com/cumaru.htm.U39e4nZkKNI, accessed in may, 20,2014.

[2] Duke, J.A. (1985) Handbook of Medicinal Herbs, 2nd edition, CRC Press, Boca Raton

[3] Bruns, R.E., Scarminio I.S. et al. (2006) Statistical Design Chemometrics, in: Data Handl. Sci.Techn., vol. 25, Elsevier, Amsterdam.