Abstract
The aqueous extract of the bark of Pinus pinaster has a high concentration of polyphenols represented by a mixture of procyanidins, besides taxifolin, phenolic acids, cinnamic acids and their glycosides. Its quality control is specified in the United States Pharmacopeia, and the assay test is performed by determination of the total procyanidins content. However, determining the individual polyphenol content may represent an additional quality parameter for this extract. In this sense, the present study aimed to develop and optimize a method of high performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detection (HPLC-PDA) for quantification of taxifolin in the bark extract of P. pinaster, using a 33 Box-Behnken factorial design. The proposed method was validated for specificity, linearity, limits of detection and quantification, precision, accuracy and robustness and it has shown that taxifolin may be used as a chemical marker for quality control of the bark extract of P. pinaster.
Highlights
Over the last decades, polyphenols have had an increasing interest on understanding vital functions of biological systems because they are important antioxidants of human diet.[1]
The selection of chemical markers is determinant for the quality control of herbal medicines,[28] in order to develop a method suitable for quality control of pine bark extract (PBE), it is necessary to establish one or more chemical markers
Low signal intensity was obtained for these substances in our laboratory by UV detection, and the chromatographic profile showed low signal-to-noise ratio for these peaks
Summary
Polyphenols have had an increasing interest on understanding vital functions of biological systems because they are important antioxidants of human diet.[1] Due to the health significance of these compounds, some analytical methods have been developed for their separation, identification and quantification in natural products.[2-4]. Polyphenols have a wide variability of chemical structures, which differ in polarity and size, from simple phenolic compounds to oligomers. They are found at low concentration levels in natural products.[5]. Sample pre-treatment is normally required before instrumental analysis.[6]. Liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and solid phase extraction (SPE) are the sample pre-treatment techniques most frequently used. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and capillary electrophoresis (CE) are the main methods.[7,8]
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