LAUSR

Abstract The mixture of six components (pyrethrin I and II, cinerin I and II, and jasmolin I and II) constituting natural insecticide pyrethrin is responsible for the insecticidal activity of Dalmatian pyrethrum (Tanacetum cinerariifolium /Trevir./ Sch. Bip.). In order to obtain deeper knowledge of its insecticidal potential, the extraction of mentioned components from plant samples was carried out for the first time, by matrix solid-phase dispersion. The influence of different factors such as the type of sorbent, sorbent-sample ratio, the elution solvent and its volume, addition of co-sorbent and drying agent, affecting extraction yield was evaluated. The pyrethrin components were extracted under optimized conditions: florisil (0.5 g) as the sorbent, mixed with 0.25 g of pyrethrum flower heads, 5 mL of acetone-ethyl acetate (1:1, v/v) as the elution solvent and 0.4 g of Na2SO4 as the drying agent. All six components in the extracts were qualitatively and quantitatively determined by HPLC-DAD. Analytical method provides high degree of linearity with  r2≻0.9974, except for pyrethrin II (0.9961). Also, the method showed good precision (intra- and inter-day) with a relative standard deviation below 14 %, and recoveries mainly above 80 %. In order to demonstrate the applicability of the developed method, three Dalmatian pyrethrum natural populations from Croatia were analyzed.