Separation and purification of four oligostilbenes from Iris lactea Pall. var. chinensis (Fisch.) Koidz by high-speed counter-current chromatography

• It is the first attempt to use HSCCC to separate oligostilbenes from Iris lactea.
• Four isolated oligostilbenes were all at high purities over 95%.
• Vitisin A, vitisin B and vitisin C, resveratrol tetramers, were firstly isolated from Iris lactea.
• The preparation of crude sample was just simply ethanol-extract.
• The HSCCC separation of oligostilbenes was rapid, efficient and economical.

A method of using high-speed counter-current chromatography (HSCCC) for preparative isolation and purification of oligostilbenes from the ethanol extracts of seed kernel of Iris lactea Pall. var. chinensis (Fisch.) Koidz was established in this study. Four oligostilbenes were successfully separated and purified by HSCCC with two sets of two-phase solvent system, n-hexane-ethyl acetate-methanol-water (3:6:4.2:5.5, v/v/v/v) in the head-to-tail elution mode for the first separation to mainly isolate vitisin A (58 mg), ɛ-viniferin (76 mg) and peak II (43 mg) from 300 mg of the crude ethanol extracts, and then light petroleum–ethyl acetate–methanol–water (5:5:3:6, v/v/v/v) in the tail-to-head elution mode for the second separation to isolate vitisin B (52 mg) and vitisin C (11 mg) from 100 mg of peak II. The purities of the isolated four oligostilbenes were all over 95.0% as determined by HPLC. Vitisin A, vitisin B and vitisin C, resveratrol tetramers, were isolated from Iris lactea for the first time. The preparation of crude sample was simple and the HSCCC method for the isolation and purification of four oligostilbenes was rapid, efficient and economical.