Detection of puerarin and danshensu in traditional Chinese medicinal preparation containing Pueraria lobata and Salvia miltiorrhiza by HPLC

A high performance liquid chromatographic method was developed and applied to the simultaneous determination of puerarin and danshensu in a traditional Chinese medicinal preparation containing Pueraria lobata and Salvia miltiorrhiza as its major herbal constituents. Elution was performed on a C18 column at 27°C with acetonitrile-water (0.5% acetic acid) at different proportions according to a time scheduled programme, and pumped at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. Indomethacin was used as an internal standard. High resolution was obtained between the analytes and the internal standard. The intra-day and inter-day precisions were better than 1.9% and 2.2%, respectively. The coefficient of determination for each analyte was above 0.997. It is a simple and sensitive analytical method with good accuracy and reproducibility.Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technolog