Simultaneous determination of three sesquiterpene lactones in Aucklandia lappa Decne by high-performance liquid...

Aucklandia lappa Decne, a well-known traditional herbal medicine, is used for the treatment of asthma, rheumatism, coughs, tuberculosis, and many other diseases.

We performed simultaneous analysis of three sesquiterpene lactones, costunolide (1), dehydrocostus lactone (2), and alantolactone (3), obtained from a 70% methanol extract of A. lappa using high-performance liquid chromatography-photodiode array (HPLC-PDA) techniques.

The compounds 1-3 were separated using a reversed-phase SunFire™ C18 analytical column kept at 35°C by the isocratic elution with distilled water and acetonitrile as mobile phase. The flow rate was 1.0 mL/min, and the injection volume was 10 μL.

The established analytical method showed high linearity, with a correlation coefficient ≥0.9999. The limit of detection and the limit of quantification of compounds 1-3 were 0.06-0.13 μg/mL and 0.21-0.42 μg/mL, respectively. The recovery of the compounds 1-3 was 97.27-103.00%. The intra- and inter-day relative standard deviations were 0.09-0.97% and 0.09-1.06%, respectively. The amounts of the compounds 1-3 were 17.32, 28.26, and 0.01 mg/g, respectively.

The established and validated HPLC-PDA method may be help for the quality control of herbal medicine, A. lappa.