Chromatographic Fingerprint and the Simultaneous Determination of Five Bioactive Components of Geranium carolinianum L. Water Extract by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

A simple and sensitive HPLC method has been developed in combination with fingerprint analysis and simultaneous determination of five markers, namely gallic acid, corilagin, methyl brevifolincarboxylate, ellagic acid and rutin for evaluation and quality control of Geranium carolinianum L. water extract. Extraction methods were optimized by comparing the hydrolysis efficiency of geraniin, a major tannin of the herb, resulting in the method of extraction with water under reflux. Water extracts were analyzed by HPLC, with a mobile phase of 0.1% aqueous phosphoric acid (v/v) and acetonitrile in a gradient program within 65 min. Compounds were detected at 274 nm UV wavelength. For fingerprint analysis, 17 peaks were selected as the characteristic peaks to evaluate the similarities of different samples collected from the suburb of Nanjing. The correlation coefficients of similarity were greater than 0.993. In quantitative analysis, the five selected markers showed good regression (R > 0.9991) within test ranges, and the average recoveries were between 97.2–101.7% and their RSD values were less than 4.50%. The total contents of the five markers varied from 44.28 to 71.84 mg/g. The method can be very useful for further development of G. carolinianum L. extracts and preparations.