Qualitative and Quantitative High Performance Liquid Chromatographic Analysis of Quassinoids in Simaroubaceae Plants

Abstract

A convenient and reliable reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography method was developed using a phenyl column and gradient elution for the determination of eight important quassinoids including glaucarubolone, chaparrinone, holacanthone, glaucarubinone, picrasin B, paraine, neoquassin and quassin, in diverse tissues of species of the Simaroubaceae. The method gave well resolved peaks for these compounds with good response and linearity in the range of 25–1000 ng. Incorporation of an internal standard provided easy quantitation of the quassinoids.