Abstract: High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) quantitative determination for Lovastatin in Monascus was studied. 75% ethanol for Lovastatin ultrasonic extraction from Monoscus was used . Extraction was continued for 20 minutes. After centrifugation, the supernatant pigment was adsorbed on a neutral aluminum oxide column. Under the particular condition Lovastatin could not be adsorbed and eluted with the effluent. After pretreatment, crude Lovastatin sample was treated by a reverse phase HPLC (RP-HPLC) column for further purification to remove the remaining pigment and other impurity. The motive phase of RP-HPLC was as follows : Methanol :0.1%, phosphate (V/V)= 75:25, and the flow rate 1ml/min. Purified Lovastatin was measured by an ultraviolet detector under 238 nm . According to 7 repeated determinations of Lovastatin sample plus standard , under the experiment condition, the recovery rate was 98%±5% with variance 2.63% . The minimum allowable detection of Lovastatin in a sample was 4 μg . Using the experiment condition ,the Lovastatin contents in two Monascus fermentation products were successfully determined.

Key words: Monascus Lovastatin High performance liquid chromatographyT