Determination of Sugar Compounds in Olive Plant Extracts by Anion-Exchange Chromatography with Pulsed Amperometric Detection

We describe a chromatographic method that uses isocratic elution and pulsed amperometric detection to determine soluble carbohydrates in plant tissues. Such a method provides a rapid and convenient means to obtain a complete profile of the sugar components of leaves and roots from olive (Olea europaea L. cv. Coratina) plants. A simple purification of plant extracts using pure water was developed, which is far less time-consuming and retains a high level of accuracy. Excellent separation of myo-inositol, galactinol, mannitol, galactose, glucose, fructose, sucrose, raffinose, and stachyose was achieved with an anion-exchange column and 12 mM NaOH spiked with 1 mM barium acetate as an eluent. At a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min, the time of analysis was less than 25 min, and repeatability of the method on the order of 2.2% as RSD or better for retention times and lower than 5.2% for peak areas. Recoveries approximated 100% (range 97.2−104.5%), and the method provided good precision with a coefficient of variation which ranged between 0.9 and 3.3%. Among identified carbohydrates extracted from leaves and roots of olive plants, glucose and mannitol were major compounds. Their molar ratio was estimated to be 1.2 ± 0.1 and 2.2 ± 0.3 for olive leaves and roots, respectively. The occurrence of soluble galactinol in plant tissues was also validated.