Application of principal component analysis for the evaluation of the chemical constituents of Mimosa tenuiflora methanolic extract by DLLME/GC-MS

Abstract In this study, various systems for the extraction of 14 chemical compounds of different classes of secondary metabolites from Mimosa tenuiflora shoots were evaluated, using dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (DLLME). The samples were collected in Jequie, located in the Southwest region of Bahia, Brazil. Nineteen extraction systems were studied using different combinations of solvents and centrifugation times. Chloroform, dichloromethane, hexane and ethyl acetate were studied as extraction solvents and acetone, acetonitrile, ethanol and methanol were studied as dispersing solvents, with centrifugation times of 10 or 20 minutes. The sedimented phases obtained from DLLME were derivatized using the silylating reagent N,O-bis (trimethylsilyl) trifluoroacetamide (BSTFA) and subsequently analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Principal component analysis (PCA) was effective to identify the best ternary solvent systems applied in DLLME. For each identified class of compounds, an agreement was verified with the structural characteristics of the compounds and their chemical interactions. These data point to the applicability efficiency of DLLME, GC-MS and PCA as a preliminary analysis of the chemical composition of organic plant extracts.