Abstract:

A HPLC method was developed for the determination of gossypol in cotton seed kernel. The chromatographic separation was carried out on a ODS-C18 column (4.6 mm × 200 mm, 5 μm) with a mobile phase composed of methanol and 1% phosphoric acid aqueous solution (85:15, V/V) at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The detected wavelength was set at 235 nm. Results showed that a good linear relationship between HPLC peak area and gossypol concentration was obtained over the range of 1.9－34.9 μg/mL. Mean spike recoveries of gossypol at three levels were 97.8%－100.3%, with RSDs ranging from 0.4% to 1.2%. The method provides the benefits of simplicity, rapidity, sensitivity and accuracy, and therefore is applicable to the determination of gossypol in cotton seed kernel.

Key words: gossypol, cotton seed kernel, acetone, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)