DETERMINATION OF POLAR CONSTITUENTS OF SCROPHULARIAE rADIX IN TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINAL PRESCRIPTIONS BY HIGH PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY

High performance liquid chromatographic methods were established for the determination of 2-(3-hydroxy-4-mcthoxyphenyl) ethyl 1-O-[α-L-arabinopyranosyl (1→6)]-feruloyl (1→4)-α-L-rhamnopyranosyl (l→3-β-D-gluco pyranoside (SN-A), harpagoside (SN-8) and cinnamic acid (SN-C) in four kinds of traditional Chinese medicinal prescriptions which contain Scrophulariae Radix: Tian-Uang-Bu-Shin-Dan, Bai-He-Gu-Jin-Tang, Bay-Du-San and Ching-Reh-Bu-Shiee-Tang. The samples were processed with a Cosmosil ODS reversed phase column by gradient elution with various ratios or 1% (v/v) acetic acid, acctouitrile and methanol as the mobile phases and detected at UV 278 nm. Regression equatious were derived showing linear relationships (correlation coefficients: 0.9918-0.9999) between the peak area ratios of each marker to an internal standard (sulfadimethoxine, chlorzoxazone or dexamethasone) and concentration. The recoveries of SN-A, B, and C from the Chinese medicinal prescriptions were 99.3-103.0%, 94.0-102.2% and 97.0-104.7%, respectively. The relative standard deviations of markers ranged between 0.96-5.91% (intraday) and 0.34-4.83% (interday). The contents of SN-A, B, and C from Chinese medicinal prescriptions were 2.35-3.30 mg/g, 0.19-1.72 mg/g and 0.21-0.99 mg/g, respectively.