ABSTRACT
A target-guidance separation strategy composed of activity screening process with high-performance liquid chromatography and separating process with high-speed countercurrent chromatography (HSCCC) has been developed and used to screen and separate radical scavengers from Lycium barbarum extract. Two compounds were found to be radical scavengers and dual-mode HSCCC was used to separate these two defined compounds due to the big gap in polarity between them. Rutin and quercetin were separated with purities of 96.5% and 95.0%. Their structures were identified by nuclear magnetic resonance and both of them exhibit potent radical scavenging activity with the IC50 values being 20.07 ± 0.10 and 3.11 ± 0.03 μg/mL, respectively.