Ординатура / Хирургия / Библиотека им академика М.И. Перельмана / Книга_5609_Библиотеки_им_академика_М_И_Перельмана

Change in dietary habits and sedentary lifestyle that has emerged along with the dawn of modern civilization has made humans weak and vulnerable to a plethora of diseases. Recently, many scientic studies have highlighted the extraordinary poten­tial of a high phytochemical-containing diet to prevent numerous diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, stroke, neurodegenerative disorders, etc. This has inspired a surge of enthusiasm in researchers to work on the develop­ment of natural health products, nutraceuticals, functional foods, and the exploration of novel biomolecules for drug designing (Sharma and Kaushik, 2021). The venture begins with the collection and accurate identication of plants followed by drying, grinding, extraction, fractionation, purication, identication, and quantication of biomolecules. Plants are a desirable medicinal source due to their tremendous thera­peutic potential, natural origin, relatively inexpensive, and ease of access. Herbal supplements can be an overly promising alternative in instances of drug intolerance and a high likelihood of detrimental consequences. Fundamentally, phytochemicals are byproducts of the plant’s secondary metabolism and are devoid of essential nutri­ents. Their synthesis is aimed to preserve plants from insect and disease infestations along with extreme environmental challenges including ultraviolet (UV) exposure, drought, salinity, and other abiotic stresses. The production of both primary and sec­ondary metabolites varies signicantly since the former are byproducts of catabolic and anabolic circuits while the latter are produced by specialized cells (Yasmeen et al, 2018).

In this method, the plant sample is packed in an inert material like sand in the extrac­tion cell which prevents aggregation of the sample and blockage of system tubes. The diffusion of organic solvents into the sample is accelerated by providing hightem­perature and pressure. The extraction cell is lled swiftly under high pressure thus forcing liquid into the solid matrix. This method is preferable for phytochemical extraction because it uses a minimal amount of solvent, the temperature and pressure of each layer of the sample can be controlled, and extraction can be done within a period of less than an hour (Sarker and Oba, 2019).

Physical Methods:

Physical methods used for the segregation of compounds are chromato­graphic techniques, sublimation, separation funnel method, fractional dis­tillation, fractional crystallization, and fractional liberation.

This process begins with the selection of four different solvents such as chloroform, acetone, n-hexane, and n-butanol. Complete dissolution of the crude extract is done with 250 ml water. Subsequently, it is transferred to a separating funnel, stirred, and left to settle. Afterward, 250 ml of the least polar solvent (n-hexane) is added and stirred. The material is allowed to settle and the aqueous layer is removed by opening the bot­tom of the separating funnel. The rest of the material is poured into another container to acquire the n-hexane fraction. The same process is repeated periodically with n-hexane until no substantial quantity of extract appears to dissolve in it. A similar process is repeated with remaining solvents to get acetone, n-butanol, and chloroform fractions. The portion left after fractionation is termed a residual aqueous fraction (RAF) as the water was used to dissolve crude extract for the very rst time (Beulah et al, 2022).

Fractional distillation is mostly used for the isolation of hydrocarbons like euca­lyptol, crude oil, and citral. The difference in the boiling point of components of