Quantitative Analysis of Toosendanin in the Fruit of Melia toosendan Sieb. Et Zucc (Meliaceae) by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Coupled with Charged Aerosol Detection

Abstract

In this work, a simple and rapid high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with charged aerosol detector (HPLC-CAD) method was first developed for the quantitation of toosendanin, the major constituent of the dried fruit of Melia toosendan Sieb. Et Zucc. Samples were well separated on an Agilent ZOBAX SB C18 column (4.6 mm × 250 mm, 5 μm) by isocratic elution using 33 % acetonitrile and 67 % water containing 0.1 % formic acid (v/v) at the flow rate of 1.0 mL min−1. The nitrogen inlet pressure of the charged aerosol detector (CAD) was 35 psi, and the nebulizer chamber temperature was 35 °C. The established method was well validated. Satisfactory linearity was achieved (r 2 > 0.9997) in a relatively wide concentration range (5–500 μg mL−1). The intra- and inter-day precisions, repeatability, and stability of the method were good with relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 1.05, 2.23, 2.39, and 2.03 %, respectively. The method also showed excellent accuracy with recovery rates of 97.42–101.87 %. Particularly, CAD showed much better sensitivity (LOQ 4 μg mL−1) than evaporative light scattering detector (LOQ 100 μg mL−1) for toosendanin’s determination. The established method was further applied in the quantitation of toosendanin in 39 batches of raw and stir-fried toosendan fructus. The HPLC-CAD method was rapid and accurate, and could be used for the routine analysis and quality control of toosendan fructus and its preparations.