HPLC DETERMINATION OF OLEANOLIC AND URSOLIC ACID IN APPLES AND APPLE POMACE

Elisabeta-Irina Geană¹, Roxana Elena Ionete¹, Alexandru Ciocarlan^2,*, Aculina Aricu², Ala Fulga², Nicon Ungur², Marina Podogova³, Diana Nikolaeva³

¹National Research and Development Institute for Cryogenics and Isotopic Technologies - ICSI Rm. Valcea,

Uzinei Street no. 4, P.O. Box Râureni 7, 240050, Râmnicu Vâlcea, Romania; e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

ABSTRACT

Four different apples cultivars (Semirenko, Golden, Idared and Vagner) and two samples of apple pomace resulted from industrial juice production were subjected to immersion, Soxhlet and supercritical extractions in order to perform full extraction of ursolic (UA) and oleanolic acids (OA) from the mentioned sources. A simple and accurate RP-HPLC method for the determination of UA and OA in extracts obtained by different extraction methods was developed. According to HPLC analyses cuticular extracts from apple peels showed high contents of UA (398.50-541.91 mg/g) and OA (145.72-186.71 mg/g) which are present in a mixture from 2.2:1 to 3.7:1 ratios. The extracts obtained from pomace by Soxhlet extraction are much richer in triterpenic acids with respect to those obtained with subcritical fluid extraction. Both extraction methods proved that apple pomace is a suitable source of bioactive compounds such as ursolic and oleanolic acids.

Keywords: HPLC; oleanolic acid; ursolic acid, triterpenes, apples, pomace.