The Establishment of Ultrasonic-Assisted Extraction for the Recovery of Phenolic Compounds and Evaluation of Their Antioxidant Activity from Morus alba Leaves Martín García, Beatriz Aznar Ramos, María José Verardo, Vito Gómez Caravaca, Ana María Morus alba leaves Phenolic compounds Box-Behnken HPLC-MS Antioxidant activity Vito Verardo would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) for Ramon y Cajal contract (RYC-2015-18795). Phenolic compounds of Morus alba leaves are bioactive compounds with beneficial properties for human health. Therefore, in this study, an optimization of ultrasonic assisted extraction by Box–Behnken design was used for the first time to optimize factors such as the percentage of ethanol, ratio solvent/sample (v/w) and extraction time to reach the highest phenolic compound amounts (evaluated by HPLC-MS) while also evaluating in vitro antioxidant activity using DPPH, ABTS and FRAP assays. The optimal extraction conditions were 40% ethanol, 1/400 (w/v) and 35 min. Applying these optimal conditions, which were identified and quantified by HPLC-MS, resulted in the extraction of 21 phenolic compounds. According to these results, the main phenolic compounds in Morus alba leaves are the phenolic glycoside and phenolic acid named protocatechuic acid-glucoside and caffeoylquinic. In addition, Morus alba leaf extract contains flavonols such quercetin-3-O-6-acetylglucoside and rutin, which represent more than 7% of its total phenolic content. 2022-03-10T12:14:36Z 2022-03-10T12:14:36Z 2022-01-24 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Martín-García, B.; Aznar-Ramos, M.J.; Verardo, V.; Gómez-Caravaca, A.M. The Establishment of Ultrasonic-Assisted Extraction for the Recovery of Phenolic Compounds and Evaluation of Their Antioxidant Activity from Morus alba Leaves. Foods 2022, 11, 314. [https://doi.org/10.3390/foods11030314] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/73289 10.3390/foods11030314 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España MDPI