Chromatographic Fingerprint Analysis of Macrothelypteris torresiana and Simultaneous Determination of Several Main Constituents by LC

A simple and reliable identification and quality control system has been developed for monitoring a herbal plant (Macrothelypteris torresiana) based on quantitative fingerprinting analysis using liquid chromatographic method with ultra-violet detector. The herbal extract was obtained by ultrasonic-assisted extraction. The separation was performed on a Burospher-100 C-18 column by gradient elution with acetonitrile and aqueous phase (containing 0.5% H3PO4, pH 3.0) at a flow rate of 1.0 mL min(-1). Under the optimal chromatographic condition, the relative standard deviations of the retention time and the peak area were less than 0.39 and 5.51%, respectively. The intra- and inter-day precisions were ranged from 0.76 to 3.23%. Good linear behaviors over the investigated concentration ranges were obtained with the values of R (2) higher than 0.999 for all analytes. The recoveries for spiked samples were in the range of 92.2-106.0%. Eleven peaks in the chromatograms of M. torresiana were identified for chromatographic fingerprint analysis. The proposed method was successfully applied to determine the contents of main constituents (protoapigenone, protoapigenin 4'-O-beta-D-glucoside, apigenin 4'-O-beta-D-glucoside, and apigenin) in different batches of M. torresiana. The proposed analytical procedure was proved to be a reliable and rapid method for the identification and quality control of the herbal plant M. torresiana.