Abstract:

A simple, rapid and sensitive reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography method (RP-HPLC) was developed for the simultaneous determination of chlorogenic acid, epicatechin and rutin in hawthorn. The contents of these phenolic compounds in pulp and stone of dry fruit and pulp of fresh fruit were determined. The pulp of fresh hawthorn fruit had a highest epicatechin content of (1.661 ± 0.024) mg/g and the contents of chlorogenic acid and rutin in pulp of dry hawthorn fruit both were the highest, reaching (0.550 ± 0.002) mg/g and (0.498 ± 0.002) mg/g, respectively. The regression equations for the three analytes presented good linearity and all the correlation coefficients were over 0.999. This method had good precision and repeatability. The spike recoveries for chlorogenic acid, epicatechin and rutin ranged from 91.8% to 110.9%, 94.6% to 107.9% and 94.2% to 108.8%, respectively, and the detection limits were 0.14, 0.37 and 0.68 μg/ml, separately.

Key words: hawthorn, phenolic compounds, reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography