Abstract: Objective: To determine the composition and contents of amino acids in the whole plant of Rumex dentatus for further study of its nutritional characteristics and food value. Methods: Amino acids were derivatized by 6-aminoquinolyl-N-hydroxysuccinimidyl-carbamate (AQC), and then their derivatives were separated on a Waters 515 HPLC system with a column temperature of 37 ℃ using phosphate buffer as mobile phase A and aqueous acetonitrile as mobile phase B in the gradient elution mode and detected at 248 nm using a UV detector. Results: Totally 17 amino acids were found, and the total content of amino acids in samples was 252.35 mg/g. The correlation coefficients of the calibration curves for 17 amino acids were all above 0.9995 (n = 5). The average spike recoveries of 17 amino acids were between 97.1% and 102.6% with a relative standard deviation (RSD) between 0.3% and 3.26% (n = 3).

Key words: Rumex dentatus, AccQ·Tag pre-column derivatization, reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC), amino acids