Simultaneous Determination of Five Hydrophilic and Lipophilic Components from roots of Salvia miltiorrhiza by HPLC

ObjectiveA reversed-phase HPLC method was established for the simultaneous determination of five hydrophilic and lipophilic components in the roots of Salvia miltiorrhiza.MethodsHydrophilic components including danshensu, protocatechuic aldehyde, and salvianolic acid B, and lipophilic components such as cryptotanshinone and tanshinone IIA, were successfully separated on a Waters Symmetry C18 reverse-phase column (250 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 µm), with acetonitrile-0.5% phosphoric acid (gradient elution) as mobile phase, the detection wavelength was set at 281 nm with flow rate of 1.0 mL/min, and the column temperature was maintained at 30 °C.ResultsThe recovery of the method was in the range of 95.1%—102.5% and the precision was less than 3% for all five analytes. All the compounds showed good linearity (R2 > 0.9990) in a relatively wide concentration range. Therefore, this HPLC method demonstrated good reproducibility, stability, and accuracy in validation studies.ConclusionsSimultaneous quantification of the multiple components by HPLC would be a better strategy for the quality evaluation on the roots of S. miltiorrhiza.