Absolute Quantification of Phenylbutanoids in Zingiber cassumunar Roxb. Rhizome by Quantitative ¹H NMR

Quantitative determination of pharmacologically active constituents in medicinal plants is critical for quality control. Due to the chemical complexity of the crude plant extracts, the presence of interfering compounds is often problematic for the unambiguous quantitation of the designed bioactive compounds. Considering the method of quantification, quantitative NMR spectroscopy (qNMR) has gained substantial popularity as a powerful and effective technique for both qualitative and quantitative analyses of natural products.

The aim of this study is to develop a quantitative NMR method for quantifying the bioactive phenylbutanoids in Zingiber cassumunar rhizome crude extract.

Quantitative ¹H NMR (qHNMR) measurements were performed on a 600 MHz NMR spectrometer using an internal standard for the determination of the absolute quantities of four phenylbutanoids in Z. cassumunar rhizome crude extract.

The direct quantification of four characteristic phenylbutanoids, i.e., (E)-1-(3',4'-dimethoxyphenyl)butadiene (DMPBD), (E)-1-(2',4',5'-trimethoxyphenyl)butadiene (TMPBD), (E)-4-(3',4'-dimethoxyphenyl)but-3-en-1-ol, and (E)-4-(3',4'-dimethoxyphenyl)but-3-en-1-yl acetate, in crude extract by qHNMR using an internal standard was achieved, with high specificity and sensitivity. The selected ¹H NMR signals could unambiguously be assigned and did not overlap with other resonances, including the highly similar compounds DMPBD and TMPBD. The method is linear in the concentration range of 0.70-14.52 mg/mL, with a limit of quantification of 0.46-0.68 mg/mL. The RSD values of intraday and interday precisions are in the range of 0.23%-0.74% and 0.29%-0.52%, respectively. The average recoveries are 99.54%-100.18%.

A rapid, accurate, and precise method using ¹H NMR for the simultaneous quantitation of four phenylbutanoids in the crude extract of Z. cassumunar rhizome was developed and validated.