A gradient HPLC method for the quality control of chlorogenic acid, linarin and luteolin in Flos Chrysanthemi Indici suppository

The Flos Chrysanthemi Indici suppository, a famous traditional Chinese medicine, is marketed for the treatment of prostatitis and chronic pelvic inflammation. A simple, relatively rapid and accurate high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method was applied to the simultaneous determination of chlorogenic acid, linarin and luteolin in Flos Chrysanthemi Indici suppository. The good separation was achieved on a Hypersil ODS column by a gradient elution using the mixture of acetonitrile and aqueous 1.0% acetic acid as mobile phase within 23 min. The method was validated for three active phenolic compounds with the relative standard deviations (R.S.D.) of intra- and inter-day precision below 3.0%, and the detection limits (S/N = 3) of chlorogenic acid, linarin and luteolin were 0.32, 0.08 and 0.05 μg ml−1, respectively. This assay was successfully applied to the determination of three active phenolic compounds in Flos Chrysanthemi Indici suppository samples with the quantitative recoveries in the range of 94.7–101.8%. The results indicate that the developed HPLC method can be readily utilized as a quality control method for Flos Chrysanthemi Indici suppository and its related traditional Chinese medicinal preparations.