Rapid and Simple Method for Quality Control of Raw Materials of Herbs by HSCCC

Abstract

The component of the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) can be influenced by soils, climates, and growth stages. The quality of TCM mostly depends on the quality of the raw materials of the used herbs. A portable instrument and simple analysis method are urgently needed to be used for quality control of the raw herbs. In this study, analytical CCC (Model HS06) was applied to analyze three herbs including Fructus Arctii (Arctium lappa L.), Cortex Magnoliae Officinalis (Magnolia officinalis Rehd. et Wils.), and Fructus Psoraleae (Psoralea corylitolia L.), which were collected from different growth locations. The results showed that analytical CCC gave similar resolution as preparative CCC. In this analytical CCC operation, the crude sample is loaded directly without any pre‐treatment, and only 1–10 mg sample is used for each injection. The separation time is often shorter than 1 hour and can compete with that of HPLC. HSCCC chromatograms can be used as the comparison patterns for the content control of the major bioactive compounds. The results demonstrated that it is feasible to control the raw herb's quality by analytical CCC.

Keywords:

• Countercurrent chromatography
• Quality control
• TCM

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank senior engineer Jinxiong Bao for his excellent technical assistance in CCC.