Comperative Study of Maceration and Ultrasonic-Assisted Extraction of Galantamine and Lycorine Content and Antioxidant Activity of Galanthus Elwesii Hook

Abstract

Galanthus elwesii Hook is a medically and economically important species that contains acetylcholinesterase inhibitory alkaloids galantamine and lycorine with well-known biological activities. In a field experiment, different plant parts of G. elwesii were harvested at three growing stages: flowering, post-flowering and fruit set. A comparative evaluation of maceration and ultrasonic-assisted extraction of galantamine and lycorine from these plant parts was implemented. The antioxidant activities and the contents of total phenolic and flavonoid of different plant parts were also investigated. The quantfication of galantamine and lycorine in the extracts was carried out by Reversed-phase High-Performance Liquid Chromatography. The HPLC analysis showed that ultrasonic-assisted extraction displayed higher quantities of galantamine, lycorine, total phenolic compounds and flavonoid and stronger antioxidant activity than maceration extraction. The highest amount of galantamine and lycorine was found in the root and leaf samples taken at fruit set as 89.27 and 23.20 µg g -1 , respectively. Further, the leaf and bulb samples of fruit formation yielded the highest total phenolic and flavonoid contents of 45.58 and 60.92 GAE g -1 DW, respectively. In addition, higher antioxidant activities were observed with the leaf and bulb samples harvested at the stage of fruit set.