Simultaneous determination of six major stilbenes and flavonoids in Smilax china by high performance liquid chromatography

Abstract A simple, sensitive and specific HPLC method was developed for simultaneous determination of the six major active constituents in Smilax china , namely taxifolin-3- O -glycoside ( 1 ), piceid ( 2 ), oxyresveratrol ( 3 ), engeletin ( 4 ), resveratrol ( 5 ) and scirpusin A ( 6 ), respectively. The samples were separated on an Aglient Zorbax XDB-C 18 column with gradient elution of acetonitrile and 0.02% phosphoric acid (v/v) at a flow rate of 1.0 ml/min and detected at 300 nm. The six target compounds were completely separated within 35 min. All calibration curves showed good linearity ( r 2  > 0.999) within test ranges. The reproducibility was evaluated by intra- and inter-day assays and R.S.D. values were less than 3.7%. The recoveries were between 93.7 and 103.0%. The method was successfully applied to the analysis of six constituents in 15 commercial samples of S. china . The results indicated that the developed HPLC assay was readily utilized as a quality control method for S. china .