Selective Extraction of Cytotoxic Substances from Medicinal Plants using Supercritical Carbon Dioxide

초임계 이산화탄소를 이용한 약용식물 성분의 선택적 추출

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) technique was applied to extract cytotoxic substances from five medicinal plants including Angelica gigas, Angelica acutiloba, Aralia cordata, Spirodela polyrhiza, Bupleurum falcatum, and Acanthopanax sessiliflorus. The cytotoxicities against P388, A549, and HL-60 cell lines were determined for the supercritical carbon dioxide extracts of five plant materials employed and were compared with those of the conventional organic solvent extracts such as n-hexane, $CHCl_{3}$, and MeOH to evaluate the SFE as an alternative method to conventional organic solvent extraction. In most cases, the SFE extracts of plant materials showed enhanced cytotoxicities when compared with those of other organic solvent extracts. In addition, the optimum temperature and pressure of SFE for extraction of the cytotoxic substances were largely affected by both the plant species and the cell lines tested. These results suggested that SFE could be an alternative to the conventional organic solvent method for the selective extraction of cytotoxic compounds from plants.