HPLC fingerprint and content determination of three principal components in seeds of Crataegus pinnatifida

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to establish the HPLC fingerprint and content determination method for Crataegus pinnatifida seeds. The separation was developed on a Welch Ultimate XB C_(18) column(4.6 mm×250 mm, 5 μm) by gradient elution with acetonitrile-water containing 0.1% formic acid as the mobile phase at the flow rate of 1 mL·min~(-1), the column temperature of 30 ℃, the injection volume of 10 μL, and the detection wavelength of 320 nm. Eighteen batches of samples were analyzed under the above chromatographic conditions to establish the fingerprint of C. pinnatifida seeds from different producing areas and a total of 24 common peaks were selected. The structures of three main chromatographic peaks were identified by comparison to reference substances, and the three compounds were simultaneously analyzed for content determination. They were identified as erythro-(7S,8R)-guaiacylglycerol-β-coniferyl aldehyde ether, threo-(7R,8R)-guaiacylglycerol-β-coniferyl aldehyde ether, and balanophonin, respectively. The relative similarity of fingerprints of 18 batches of samples and references ranged from 0.928 to 0.999, and the content of the three compounds was 0.055 1-0.182 7, 0.061 8-0.225 8, and 0.156 8-0.405 6 mg·g~(-1), respectively. SPSS 17.0 and SIMCA 14.1 were used for cluster analysis, principal component analysis(PCA), and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis(OPLS-DA) on the common peaks of the HPLC fingerprint of C. pinnatifida seeds. The results showed that there were significant differences between the two batches of samples from Liaoning province and the other samples, and the three compounds to be tested were the main components leading to the difference of C. pinnatifida seeds. The established method was simple and reliable and can be used for qualitative and quantitative analysis of C. pinnatifida seeds. The findings of this study are expected to provide a scientific basis for quality control of C. pinnatifida seeds.