Abstract
A high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method for the simultaneous determination of dictamine, obacunone and fraxinellone was established for the quality control of traditional herb Dictamnus dasycarpus cortex. Separation and quantification were successfully achieved with a Shiseido C18 column ($5\;{\mu}m$, 4.6 mm I.D. ${\times}$ 250 mm) by gradient elution of a mixture of methanol and water at a flow rate of 1.0 ml/min. The diode-array UV/Vis detector (DAD) was used for the detection and the wavelength for quantification was set at 236 nm. The presence of dictamine, obacunone and fraxinellone in this extract was ascertained by retention time, spiking with each authentic standard and UV spectrum. All three compounds showed good linearity ($r^2$ > 0.999) in relatively wide concentration ranges. The R.S.D. recovery of each compound was 101.0~103.7% with R.S.D. values less than 1.0%. This method was successfully applied to the determination of contents of dictamine, obacunone and fraxitnellone in three commercial products of D. dasycarpus cortex. These results suggest that the developed HPLC method is simple, effective and could be readily utilized as a quality control method for commercial products.
