Plumbagin recovery in field specimens of Drosophyllum lusitanicum (L.) Link

The naphthoquinone plumbagin has a broad spectrum of biological activities. The aim of this study was to investigate the efficiency of two extraction methods (Soxhlet and ultrasound-assisted extraction) and three solvents (methanol, chloroform and hexane) to recover plumbagin from fresh and dried tissues of field specimens of Drosophyllum lusitanicum (L.) Link. The highest extraction yields were obtained with methanol as solvent and using fresh plant material. The obtained extracts were analysed by gas chromatography with mass spectrometric detection and plumbagin was the major compound present. Plumbagin was quantified in the extracts using the external standard methodology. The results obtained showed that the best recoveries of plumbagin were attained using fresh plant material and there were no significant differences between Soxhlet and ultrasound-assisted extraction. Moreover, hexane proved to be the more appropriate solvent for the extraction of plumbagin, providing high recoveries and the most concentrated extracts, yielding 2.42 mg of plumbagin per gram of plant material with the highest degree of purity. This method is a simple and efficient one to extract large amounts of plumbagin from D. lusitanicum field specimens.Tomás Grevenstuk acknowledges a grant from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (SFRH/BD/31777/2006