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Chiral Separation and Analysis of Astaxanthin Stereoisomers in Biological Organisms by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

YANG Shu, ZHANG Ting, XU Jie, LI Xuemin, ZHOU Qingxin, XUE Changhu*   

  1. College of Food Science and Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266003, China
  • Online:2015-04-25 Published:2015-04-28
  • Contact: XUE Changhu

Abstract:

A high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for chiral separation and analysis of astaxanthin
stereoisomers in several biological organisms was developed. The separation was performed on a Chiralpak IC column (4.6 mm ×
250 mm, 5 μm) by using methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE)-acetonitrile as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min.
The detection wavelength of diode array detector (DAD) was 476 nm. This method was applied to analyze astaxanthin
stereoisomers in Haematococcus pluvialis, Phaffia yeast, Penaeus vannamei, Penacus orientalis, Japanese tiger prawn,
salmon and crab. The results showed that the linear range of the calibration curve for astaxanthin stereoisomers was
0.1–50 mg/L with a correlation coefficient of 0.999 9. The average recovery rates for astaxantin stereoisomers were in the
range of 86.2%–98.3%. These results demonstrate that the proposed method is feasible, rapid, simple and accurate.

Key words: astaxanthin, stereoisomers, chiral analysis, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)

CLC Number: