TITLE:
Quantitation of the Total Catechin Content in Oils Extracted from Seeds of Selected Tea (Camellia sinensis (L) O. Kuntze, Theaceae) Clones by RP-HPLC
AUTHORS:
Kelvin Omondi George, Kelvin Okong’o Moseti, John Kanyiri Wanyoko, Thomas Kinyanjui, Francis Nyamu Wachira
KEYWORDS:
Soxhlet Extraction, TSO, RP-HPLC, Catechins, LLE
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.6 No.7,
April
30,
2015
ABSTRACT: Catechins (flavan-3-ols) are polyphenolic plant secondary metabolites that have been strongly associated with a wide variety of beneficial health effects in vitro, in vivo and clinically. This study reports findings on the content of catechins in tea seed oil (TSO) extracted by Soxhlet extraction from seeds of different clones of Kenyan tea. Extraction of catechins from the crude oils was achieved by sequential liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) using methanol and quantified by reverse phase High Performance Liquid Chromatography (RP-HPLC). Results obtained revealed that all the crude test oils contained catechins, with oils extracted from clones TRFK K-Purple and GW-Ejulu having the highest total catechin content of 9.8 ± 0.25 and 9.0 ± 0.83 (×10-3% flavonoids) respectively. Statistically significant differences (p