Tomato fruits(Lycoperisicon esculentum) synthesize the glycoalkaloids dehydrotomatine and α-tomatine, possibly as defense against bacteria, fungi and insects. We developed a new effective method to prepare and purify dehydrotomatine and α-tomatine that exists in tomato fruits using alumina column chromatography and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The tomato glycoalkaloids(TGA) in tomato was extracted with 2% acetic acid, and then precipitated with ammonium hydroxide(pH=10.5). The dry precipitate substance was applied on alumina column, and then fractionated with water saturated n-butylalcohol. The TGA(Fr. No. 26~36) were collected and dried under reduced pressure. The TGA was performed on a reverse phase HPLC(Inertsil ODS-2, 5 ㎛), eluted with acetonitrile/20mM KH2PO4(24:76, v/v) at 208 ㎚. Two peaks were detected on HPLC, and individual peak was collected by repeating HPLC. Furthermore, to confirm the identity dehydrotomatine and α-tomatine, each peak isolated was hydrolyzed with 1N HCl into sugar and aglycone tomatidine. The sugars were converted to trimethylsilyl ester derivatives. The nature and molar ratios of sugars were identified by gas-liquid chromatography(GLC) and the aglycone by high-performance liquid chromatography(HPLC). The first peak (Rt=17.5 min) eluted from HPLC was identified as dehydrotomatine, and second peak(Rt=21.0 min) was as α-tomatine. This technique has been used effectively to prepare and isolate dehydrotomatine and α-tomatine from tomato fruits.

• 정인창 | In Chang Jung