The project aims to carry out by GC/MS analysis a screening of the chemical composition of volatile fraction (VF) and essential oils (EO) obtained by steam distillation from various brown algae, most notably the one belonging to the genus Dictyopteris and Dictyota, collected off the Mediterranean coast of Algeria. The GC/MS analysis would allow the identification of volatile compounds presents in VF and EO of such complex samples, and the detection of potentially interesting unknown components to isolate and to identificate. Thereafter, we focus our study on isolation of the unknown compounds in VF and/or EO by prep-MDGC system consisted of three chromatographs (LC/GC/GC) to collect highly pure sample amounts (mgs) in a short time, operating in different configurations, based on the complexity of the sample. After the isolation and purification of the unknown compounds in VF and/or EO, their structural elucidation would be effected by spectroscopic methods.
The project could be extended to the study of the chemical analysis of the crude extract obtained from algae of the genus Cystoseira. This genus is characterized by the presence of a wide range of diterpenes skeleton. The main object of the study consist to the isolation of new secondary metabolites from the crude extract by HPLC followed by their structural elucidation.
During the research period 2 seminars will be organized on:
- Evaluation of the chemical composition (terpenoids, steroids, alkaloids and phenolic compounds) of Dictyopteris membranacea alga depending from seasonal harvest.
- Evaluation of the metabolomic profiling of different kind of algae collected in Algeria.
Isolation of the target analytes with a high purity degree by heart-cut three dimensional GC-prep system.
Optimization of the column set to use, to provides orthogonal selectivity for peak purification.