Sinopodophylli Fructus is the commonly used traditional Tibetan medicinal herb. In the present study, we established a reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography method to simultaneously determine three lignans and five flavonoid constituents, namely podophyllotoxin, desoxypodophyUotoxin, 4＇-demethyldesoxypodophyllotoxin, 8-prenylkaemferol, quercetin, kaempferol, 8,2＇-diprenylquercetin 3-methylether and 8-prenylquercetin, in Sinopodophylli Fructus. The chromatographic separation was achieved on a C_18 analytical column with a gradient mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and 0.05% phosphoric acid at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. UV detection was set at 290 nm and 370 rim, and the column oven was set at 35℃. This method provided a good reproducibility, and its overall intra- and inter-day precision was less than 3% and 4%, respectively. The recovery of the method was 98.29%-101.60%, and a good linearity （R2≥0.9992） was obtained for all the analytes over a relatively wide range of concentration. A total of 17 samples ofS. hexandrum （12 fruits, 5 roots and rhizomes） were collected from different areas and then successfully quantified. The results indicated that the contents of eight compounds significantly varied （the sum content ranged from 16.90 to 55.68 mg/g）, and prenylated fiavonoids could be used as marker constituents in the identification and quality control of Sinopodophylli Fructus.
Angelicae Sinensis Radix, Danggui in Chinese, is an important traditional Chinese medicine derived from the roots ofAngelica sinensis （Oliv.） Diels. HPLC-ESI-MSn was applied to analyze the chemical constituents in the methanol extract ofDanggui. A total of 24 compounds were identified or tentatively characterized based on their UV and mass spectra, containing11 phenolic compounds, 12 phthalides and 1 amino acid. Three dicaffeoylquinic acids, 5-feruoylquinic acid and ferulic acidhexoside were detected in A. sinensis for the first time. According to Chinese medicine theories, the three parts of Danggui（Guitou, Guishen, Guiwei） have different therapeutic effects and their substantial evidence has not been clearly elucidatedyet. In the present study, the chemical compositions of different parts of Danggui were investigated by using the establishedHPLC method. The result indicated that the content of tryptophan was getting lower and the contents of low polarity constituentslike phthalides trended to get higher from Guitou to Guiwei. This might partly explain the therapeutic effects of differentparts of Danggui.
In the present study, we developed and validated a high-performance liquid chromatography method for the simultaneous determination of seven phenylpropanoid compounds （2-hydroxyl cinnamaldehyde, coumarin, cinnamyl alcohol, cinnamic acid, 2-methoxy cinnamic acid, cinnamaldehyde and 2-methoxy cinnamaldehyde） in Cinnamomi Cortex and Cinnamomi Ramulus. The levels of seven phenylpropanoid compounds in Cinnamomi Cortex and Cinnamomi Ramulus were compared using this method. A total of 48 samples （27 Cinnamomi Cortex and 21 Cinnamomi Ramulus） were purchased in China and analyzed. Quantities of seven phenylpropanoid compounds ranged from 17.5 to 61.6 mg/g in Cinnamomi Cortex and ranged from 9.91 to 23.4 mg/g in Ciunamomi Ramulus. The level of 2-methoxy cinnamic acid in the Cinnamomi Cortex samples was below the LOD, whereas it ranged from 0 to 0.119 mg/g in the Cinnamomi Ramulus samples. The （cinnamyl alcohol＋cinnamic acid）/cinnamaldehyde ratios （R346） of Ciunamomi Cortex and Cinnamomi Ramulus ranged from 0.0121 to 0.0467 and 0.0598 to 0.182, respectively. This ratio could be used to discriminate Cinnamomi Cortex （〈0.05） and Cinnamomi Ramulus （〉0.05）. The extraction rates （Dn） of seven compounds in boiling water were different, with the lowest dissolution for cinnamaldehyde （〈3%） and the highest for cinnamic acid （about 60%）.
