The leaves of Gymnema sylvestre have been chewed for over a century as a folk remedy for diabetes because of its ability to block sweet taste receptors. The polypeptide responsible for this effect in rats is called gurmarin. The isolation of gurmarin from Gymnema sylvestre is a long process which includes a water extraction, an acid precipitation, an ethanol extraction, an ion chromatographic separation, and purification by high performance liquid chromatography.  The published process is expected to have a 0.001% yield.  Our research aim is twofold:   to improve this yield by investigating and optimizing a method published by other researchers and to isolate and purify a sufficient quantity of gurmarin so that it can be used for in vivo medical research studies. The preliminary results indicate that the elimination of a preparative column purification step in the published procedure can save considerable time and still provide adequate purification.  We have also used synchronous florescence spectra to identify the gurmarin fractions by their tryptophan and tyrosine peaks.

Isolation and characterization of gurmarin from the leaves of the <i>Gymnema sylvestre</i>

246th National Meeting (2013)

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Isolation and characterization of gurmarin from the leaves of the Gymnema sylvestre