Quantitative determination of bioactive 4-hydroxy-α-tetralone, tetralone-4-O-ß-D-glucopyranoside and ellagic acid in Ammannia baccifera (Linn.) by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography.

Ammannia baccifera is an important component of various Chinese herbal formulations for which a rapid, simple, sensitive, gradient and reproducible reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method has been developed for the quantitative estimation of its bioactive constituents, 4-hydroxy-α-tetralone (4H), tetralone-4-O-ß-D-glucopyranoside (T4) and ellagic acid (EA). The chromatographic separation of samples was performed on a Chromatopak Peerless C18 (250 × 4.6 mm i.d., 5 µm) column by gradient elution with 0.1% trifluoroacetic acid in water and methanol at a flow rate of 0.6 mL/min, a column temperature at 25°C and ultraviolet detection at λ 254 nm. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) were 1.51 and 5.06 µg/mL for EA, 0.70 and 2.33 µg/mL for T4 and 0.22 and 0.73 µg/mL for 4H, respectively. Good results were achieved with respect to linearity (r(2) > 0.999), repeatability (relative standard deviation ≤ 1.73%) and recovery (99.06-100.76%). The method was validated for linearity, accuracy, repeatability, LOQ and LOD. The method is simple, accurate and precise and was successfully applied to the analysis of these three analytes in five different leaf and root samples of A. baccifera; the method may be recommended for routine quality control analysis of various Chinese herbal formulations containing A. baccifera.