Abstract:

Pinellia ternata has a long history of medicinal use in China, Japan, and Korea. Herein, we present a sensitive, selective, and robust HPLC method for the simultaneous determination of 6 organic acids (oxalic acid, malic acid, citric acid, formic acid, acetic acid, and succinic acid), 3 nucleosides (uridine, guanosine hydrate, and adenosine), and ephedrine in P. ternata. The Rhizoma pinelliae samples were collected from different parts of Southwest China, and the 10 constituents were detected at a wavelength of 210 nm. Chromatographic separation was achieved on a Boston Green ODS reversed-phase column along with a gradient mobile phase of methanol and phosphate buffer (pH 2.3, 10 mmol/L, v/v) at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The range of recovery was between 90.8% and 101.9%, and the calibration curves showed high linearity. The relative standard deviations of the new method were less than 3.0% for intra- and inter-day analyses. All samples were stable for at least 48 h. The abundance of the 10 compounds were dependent on their specific locations. The new HPLC method is a powerful technique for the quality control of P. Ternata.

Key words: Pinellia ternate, Organic acids, Nucleoside, Ephedrine, HPL