Chromatographic Isolation and Characterization of Secondary Metabolites of Dalea ornata (Fabaceae)

Abstract

The process of isolating and characterizing natural products is a vital component of drug discovery, through which the pharmaceutical industry drives the creation of synthetic blockbuster drugs like Lipitor© and Paxil©. Advanced methods in column chromatography including polarity-based gradient elution, neutral size-exclusion polymers, and effective techniques in visualization using thin layer chromatography contribute to the successful purification of novel natural products. In our work to date, a number of phenolic compounds have been isolated from the shrub Dalea ornata (Fabaceae), and at cellular-level concentrations show efficacy eradicating the problematic parasite Ancylostema ceylanicum, or hookworm. Our research is toward the continued isolation of relatively abundant and chemically-viable target molecules, by various chromatographic methods. This approach frequently yields newly discovered compounds of many varieties, possibly including antibiotic tetracyclines and colorful flavonoids. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, polarimetry, and other physicochemical methods of analysis are utilized to determine the compounds’ chemical characteristics in the Department of Chemistry, in conjunction with anthelmintic or anti-hookworm ex vivo testing, carried out in collaboration with Dr. Blaise Dondji’s group in the Department of Biological Sciences