Cordycepin is a nucleoside that can be isolated from the fungus Cordyceps militaris and is able to enter a number of metabolic pathways in the human body due to its structural similarity to adenosine. Therefore, cordycepin has for many years been recognised as having a great potential for the treatment of a wide range of diseases such as hyperglycaemia, heart, lung and kidney disease. Studies in recent years have also showed that cordycepin could be used as anticancer agent. The aim of my thesis research work was to develop and optimise a method for the isolation of cordycepin from ethanolic extracts of C. militaris. I used the dynamic adsorption method carried out in a glass column filled with adsorption resin. The purification of the extract was carried out in two steps; firstly, precipitating a part of the impurities by the addition of a 100 % ethanol solution and then using the resulting supernatant for the isolation of cordycepin on various resins types. To optimise the adsorption conditions, I used the macroporous adsorption resin NKA II and three cation exchange resins. I determined the content of cordycepin in standard solutions and samples using high-performance liquid chromatography with a diode array detector (HPLC-DAD).
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