Abstract:

A simple and rapid high performance liquid chromatographic method has been developed for the determination of geniposidic acid and chlorogenic acid in the male flowers and related products of Eucommia ulmoides. Two components were separated by a Shim-pack VP-ODS column (150 mm×4.6 mm, 5 μm) with a mobile phase of methanol-water-acetic acid (24∶75∶1, v/v) at a flow rate of 1 mL/min, column temperature of 30 ℃ and detection wavelength of 240 nm. Under the chromatographic conditions mentioned above, the method performance, such as the number of theoretical plate, resolution, trailing etc have all reached required level. The linear ranges were 0.025-0.400 g/L for geniposidic acid and 0.075-1.200 g/L for chlorogenic acid, with the correlation coefficients of 0.9997 and 0.9999, respectively. The average recoveries were 100.2% and 100.5%, and the relative standard deviations (RSDs) were 1.47% and 1.49% respectively. The minimum detection limits were 0.02 μg/L for geniposidic acid, and 0.06 μg/L for chlorogenic acid. The method developed has demonstrated the characteristics of simple mobile phase composition, short retention, good resolution, high repeatability and precision. It is suitable for the determination of the two compounds in the male flowers of E. ulmoides and related products.

Key words: chlorogenic acid, Eucommia ulmoides, geniposidic acid, male flower, male flower tea , reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography(RP-HPLC)