The authors thank the Brazilian Funding Agencies FAPESP and CNPq for their financial support. “
“Cafestol (1) and kahweol (2) (Fig. 1) are two examples of naturally-occurring furan diterpenes in the lipid fraction of coffee (Bengis and Anderson, 1932, Djerassi et al., 1953, Haworth et al., 1954, Dias et al., 2010, Haworth and Johnstone, 1956 and Lam

et al., 1982). Of the two most significant species in the buy CB-839 coffee trade, Coffea arabica L. (Arabica) contains about 0.6% of cafestol (1) and 0.3% of kahweol (2) while Coffea canephora Pierre (Robusta) contains mostly cafestol (1) (0.2%) and 16-O-methylcafestol (0.15%), not present in Arabica coffee ( De Roos et al., 1997, Nackunstz and Maier, 1987, Pettitt, 1987 and Ratnayake et al., 1993). Coffee furan diterpenes are mainly present in the esterified form, with 26 different fatty acids, and only small amounts are in the free form ( Fig. 1) ( Kurzrock & Speer, 2001). The amount of diterpenes present in the coffee brew

depends on the way coffee is prepared. The highest content of diterpenes was found in boiled, unfiltered coffee brews, while in drip-filtered coffee brews they are Y-27632 in vitro negligible Morin Hydrate (Martín, Pablos, González, Valdenebro, & León-Camacho, 2001). Cafestol and kahweol have been described to be both desirable

and undesirable in human health. They are anticarcinogenic (Butt and Sultan, 2011, Cavin et al., 2002, Hatzold, 2012, IARC, 1991, Kim et al., 2009, Lam et al., 1982, Lee et al., 2007 and Tao et al., 2008), antioxidant (IARC, 1991 and Lee and Jeong, 2007) and anti-inflammatory (Bertholet, 1987) and showed hepatoprotective effects (Lee et al., 2007). On the other hand, a hypercholesterolaemic action has been reported, attributed mainly to cafestol (Arnesen et al., 1984, Butt and Sultan, 2011, Hatzold, 2012, Urgert et al., 1995 and Weusten-Van Der Wouw et al., 1994), and they are also responsible for increasing low-density lipoprotein (Urgert & Katan, 1997). Green coffee oil is obtained by mechanical cold pressing or extraction with solvents, such as hexane, but these traditional methods are labour intensive and time-consuming, and sometimes require large quantities of solvents (Araujo & Sandi, 2006). Other procedures involve supercritical fluid extraction method (SFE) (Araujo and Sandi, 2006 and De Azevedo et al., 2008) and high-speed countercurrent chromatography (HSCCC) (Scharnhop & Winterhalter, 2009).