IDENTIFICATION OF KURARINONE BY LC/MS AND INVESTIGATION OF ITS THERMAL STABILITY

A herbal ingredient kurarinone (7, 2’, 4’-trihydroxy-8-lavandulyl-5-methoxy flavanone) was isolated from the roots of sophora flavescens Ait. by ultrasonic extraction, which is one of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) materials. A reliable high performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry (HPLCMS) method was used for determination of kurarinone. C18 column (150×4.6 mm, 5 µm) and methanol-water mobile phase (70:30, by volume) were used in the chromatographic separation of active components from the herb. HPLC-ESI-MS (UV, 288 nm; m/z, 437.5 [M-H]-) was adopted for kurarinone identification. Kurarinone with purity of 95.5% was obtained by silica gel column followed by reverse-phase column chromatography. The thermal stability of kurarinone was investigated, which illustrates that kurarinone was stable below 25 °C in 48 h, but a degradation of 25.54% was observed at 80 °C for 2 h.