A validated high performance liquid chromatograph-photodiode array method for simultaneous determination of 10 bioactive components in compound hongdoushan capsule

BACKGROUND: The compound Hongdoushan capsule (CHC) is widely known as compound herbal preparation and is often used to treat ovarian cancer and breast cancer, and to enhance the body immunity, etc., in clinical practice. OBJECTIVE: To determine simultaneously 10 bioactive components from CHC, namely glycyrrhetinic acid, liquiritin, glycyrrhizin, baccatin III, 10-deacetylbaccatin III, cephalomannine, taxol, ginsenoside Rg1, ginsenoside Re, and ginsenoside Rb1. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A high performance liquid chromatograph method coupled with photodiode array detector was developed and validated for the 1(st) time. Chromatographic analysis was performed on a SHIMADZU C(18) by utilizing a gradient elution program. The mobile phase was acetonitrile (A)-water (B) at a flow rate of 0.8 mL/min. RESULTS: The calibration curve was linear over the investigated concentration ranges with the values of r(2) higher than 0.9993 for all the 10 bioactive components. The average recovery rates range from 98.4% to 100.5% with relative standard deviations ≤2.9%. The developed method was successfully applied to analyze 10 compounds in six CHC samples from different batches. In addition, the herbal sources of 32 chromatographic peaks were identified through comparative studying on chromatograms of standard, the respective extracts of Hongdoushan, RenShen, GanCao, and CHC. CONCLUSION: All the results imply that the accurate and reproducible method developed has high separation rate and enables the determination of 10 bioactive components in a single run for the quality control of CHC.