Valuable medicinal plants and resins: Commercial phytochemicals with bioactive properties

A simple, fast and efficient method was developed for the isolation of phytochemicals with bioactive properties from valuable resins and medicinal plants. The method involves rapid qualitative detection of triterpenes by thin-layer chromatography (TLC), efficient extraction with n-hexane, quantitative analysis by HPLC and preparative separation (preparative TLC and crystallization) to obtain high-purity α-amyrin (98.5%), 3-epi-lupeol (98.0%) and β-amyrin (82.0%). The presence of α- and β-amyrin, or a mixture of both, was detected by TLC on silica gel in all the sources investigated, while 3-epi-lupeol was only found in the Mexican Copal resins. The results demonstrated that HPLC is a selective method for the analysis of α- and β-amyrin and 3-epi-lupeol, and that the best source of α-amyrin was Mexican Copal Tepoztlan, that of β-amyrin was Nance wastes and that of 3-epi-lupeol was Mexican Copal Sonora.