Efficient separation of high-purity compounds from Oxytropis falcata using two-dimensional preparative chromatography

The separation of high-purity compounds from traditional Tibetan medicines plays an important role in investigating their bioactivity. Nevertheless, it is often quite difficult to isolate compounds with high purity because of the complexity of traditional Tibetan medicines. In this work, an offline two-dimensional reversed-phase preparative method was successfully developed for the separation of high-purity compounds from Oxytropis falcata. Based on the analysis results, an ODS C18 prep column was used for first-dimensional preparation, and 14.8 g of the crude sample was separated into five fractions with a recovery of 74.6%. Then, an XAqua C18 prep column was used to isolate high-purity compounds in the second-dimensional preparation because its separation selectivity is different with the ODS C18 stationary phase. As a result, eight compounds in the crude sample were isolated in more than 98% purity. This is the first report of trans-cinnamic acid (1) and trifolirhizin (2) from Oxytropis falcata. This method has the potential to be an efficient separation method of high-purity compounds from Oxytropis falcata and it shows great promise for the separation of high-purity compounds from complex samples.