Abstract:

An external standard method was established to determine all-trans-lycopene on C30-HPLC. Stationary phase was YMCTM Carotenoid column C30 (4.6 mm × 250 mm, SOD-5μm, Waters); mobile phase A was acetonitrile-methanol (3:1, V/V); mobile phase B was methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE); both mobile phase A and B were added 0.05% (V/V) triethylamine; linear gradient elution was conducted with an increase of mobile phase B from 0 to 80% (V/V) in 20 min followed by maintaining at 80% mobile phase B for 15 min; flow rate was 1.0 mL/min; monitoring wavelength was 470 nm; injection volume was 20μL; column temperature was set at room temperature. Under these determination parameters, the minimum detection limit was 0.10μg/mL; in the range of 10 100μg/mL, linear correlation equation was y = 212181x (R2 = 0.9738) with a RSD of 4.04%. The recovery rate of external standard was 97.34% with a RSD of 0.904%. Therefore, this established method is suitable for determining alltrans-lycopene in tomato fruits.

Key words: all-trans-lycopene, quantification, external standard, C30-HPLC