Xiaoshuang Cai,Rui Zhang,Ying Guo,Jingren He,Shuyi Li,Zhenzhou Zhu,Gang Liu,Zhiwei Liu and Jun Yang

Abstract

Compounds in Fructus Gardeniae have been shown to possess a wide array of biological activities. However, Gardenia oil extracted from its fruit is less reported and its composition remains uncertain. To completely characterize lipophilic compounds in Gardenia oil, three conventional extraction (CE) and ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) methods were investigated. The oil extraction yield obtained by UAE was 51.8% higher than that acquired by cold-pressed extraction (CPE). The fatty acid profile in UAE oil with different solvents was characterized by GC-MS. Petroleum ether was observed to be an ideal solvent with 8.59% extraction yield and 78.88% recovery rate and with a ratio of 3.11 of unsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acids. Response surface methodology (RSM) with Box–Behnken Design (BBD) was applied to optimize conditions in UEA of oil to maximize extraction yield. Furthermore, the bioactive components in oil extracted by UAE were qualitatively identified and quantified by 

Crocin-1 (> 98%) and Crocin-2 (> 98%) were obtained from Chengdu Biopurify Phytochemicals Ltd., China.