文摘
Ionic liquids (ILs) have attracted a great deal of attention as solvents in drug-related processes because of their unique physicochemical properties. However, investigations on the cytotoxicity of ILs toward mammalian cell lines are quite insufficient, and it remains a great challenge to develop ILs with both higher efficiency and less cytotoxicity. Herein we reported the cytotoxicity of cholinium carboxylate ILs toward HepG2 cells and their separation performance for natural bioactive molecules for the first time. At first, the cytotoxicity toward HepG2 cells of these ILs was systematically evaluated by MTT cell viability assays, and then their functionality as extractants was investigated through the extractive separation experiments of tocopherol homologues. The results demonstrated that these ILs combined both lower cytotoxicity and higher performance than the widely used imidazolium chloride ILs. For example, the IC50 of cholinium acetate was 135.53, approximately 4 times as large as that of 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride (35.66). The distribution coefficient of δ-tocopherol and the selectivity of δ-tocopherol to α-tocopherol using cholinium octanoate were 8.24 and 9.84, respectively, which were 37 times and twice those using 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride. These results manifest that ILs can be designed in a win–win strategy to combine low cytotoxicity and high performance, which are highly instructive to improve the application of ILs in drug-related processes owing to the positive impact on both safety and efficiency.