Isolation and Quantificative Analysis of Oleanolic Acid from Satureja mutica Fisch. & C. A. Mey.

Satureja mutica (lamiaceae) is an herbaceous plant which grows in north-west of iran. oleanolic acid has been previously isolated from some lamiaceae genus andshowed a broad range of biological activities. besides silphium spp., panax quinquefolium rootand calendula officinalis flower as the interesting source of oleanolic acid used in the herbalindustry, here we report the isolation and quantitative evaluation of oleanolic acid, as one ofthe major constituents in s. mutica.methods: dried aerial parts of s. mutica were successively extracted with diethyl ether. thisextract was used for further isolation on silica gel column chromatography to obtaincompound 1. isolated compound was identified based on the spectral data of 1h- nmr, 13cnmrand mass spectroscopy. densitometric analysis of the developed plate of tlc wascarried out to quantify the oleanolic acid using tlc scanner.results: isolated compound (1) was structural elucidated as oleanolic acid and its nmrdata showed good agreement with the reference data mentioned in literature.spectrodensitometric analysis showed that the band characterized by absorptionmaximum of oleanolic acid was placed at ëmax = 270 nm without derivatization. thecontents of oleanolic acid are calculated 17.5 mg in 100 g of s. mutica leaves based on dryweight.conclusions: oleanolic acid is a ubiquitous triterpenoid in plant kingdom, medicinalherbs, and is integral part of the human diet. densitometric analysis is the accurate,selective, and precise method which can be used for routine quality control analysis andquantitative determination of oleanolic acid in lamiaceae plants specially saturejaspecies, as one of the industrial source of this compound.