Tong Zhou, Dong-Ping Xu, Sheng-Jun Lin, Ya Li, Jie Zheng, Yue Zhou, Jiao-Jiao Zhang, Hua-Bin Li
The fruit of Sims is an edible and sweet wild fruit. In our previous study, the fruit was found to have a strong antioxidant property. In this study, an ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) method was developed to extract natural antioxidants from the fruit of Sims, and a response surface methodology was used to optimize the conditions of UAE to maximize the extraction efficiency. The influence of five independent extraction parameters (ethanol concentration, solvent/material ratio, extracting time, temperature, and ultrasound power) on the extraction efficiency were investigated using a single factor experiment, and then a central composite rotatable design was used to investigate the interaction of three key parameters. The results showed that the optimal extraction conditions were 42.98% ethanol, 28.29 mL/g solvent/material ratio, 34.29 min extracting time, 60 °C temperature, and 600 W ultrasound power. Under these conditions, the Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) value of the extracts was 1074.61 ± 32.56 μmol Trolox/g dry weight (DW). Compared with conventional maceration (723.27 ± 11.61 μmol Trolox/g DW) and Soxhlet extraction methods (518.37 ± 23.23 μmol Trolox/g DW), the UAE method improved the extraction efficiency, in a shorter period of time. In addition, epicatechin gallate, epicatechin, rutin, epigallocatechin, protocatechuic acid, chlorogenic acid, and quercetin, were identified and quantified in the fruit extracts of Sims by UPLC-MS/MS.
