Chlorogenic acid isomers have been increasingly studied because of their beneficial biological effects in humans. However, their commercial analytical standards are high cost, a fact that limits research. Yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis) is a lowcost, natural plant matrix with marked contents of chlorogenic acids, but its potential as a source of analytical standards of chlogenic acids has never been investigated. Thus, this study aimed to optimize a method to extract, isolate, and purify analytical standards of six chlorogenic acids (3-caffeoylquinic, 4-caffeoylquinic, 5-caffeoylquinic, 3,4-dicaffeoylquinic, 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic, and 4,5-dicaffeoylquinic) from yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis) using semi-preparative high-performance liquid chromatography. For this, sequential statistical multivariate approaches (central composite designs) were utilized. Using the optimized extraction conditions (5 mL of ethanol:water 26:74 v/v, stirring for 30 min at 60 °C), 1000 g of yerba mate gave a concentrated extract totalizing 21.57 g of chlorogenic acid isomers. We established optimized chromatographic conditions to obtain analytical standards of each compound individually, as well as to produce a mix containing all the compounds, with high yields and purities above 97%. Thus, the optimized conditions to obtain the standards have an excellent yield, employed a natural low-cost matrix, and used simple and automated processes with potential to produce in laboratory and industrial scale. These results show the potential of yerba mate as a novel source of standards of chlorogenic acids, and provide an effective method to produce them in laboratories worldwide, which may contribute to advance the research on these compounds.
This work was supported by CAPES (Coordination for the
Improvement of Higher Education Personnel), Project numbers 001
and 1267386.
