LEMON (CITRUS LEMON L. BURM) AS A SOURCE OF UNIQUE BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS

Citrus contains several bioactive health maintaining compounds that may have potential for prevention of certain diseases. In order to understand the role of these bioactives, isolation and characterization are critical steps of bio-assay derived studies. Lemon seed powder was extracted with hexane and ethyl acetate (EtOAc), using Soxhlet extractor. The EtOAc extract was concentrated by rotary evaporation and dried. The dried residue was extracted with dichloromethane (DCM) and concentrated to obtain limonin crystals. However, β-sitosterol was obtained by silica gel column chromatography. These compounds were detected by thin layer chromatography and purity was confirmed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Furthermore, the structures of the isolated compounds were confirmed by atmospheric pressure chemical ionization-mass spectrometry (APCI-MS).