Abstract: Objective: To determine the proanthocyanidin B2 content of five apple cultivars by HPLC. Methods: The chromatographic separation was performed on a Phenomenex Luna C18 column (250 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 μm). The mobile phase comprised water containing 0.5% H3PO4 (A) and acetonitrile-water (50:50, V/V, B) at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The column temperature was 30 ℃. The detection wavelength was set as 280 nm. Results: There was a good linear relationship between peak area and concentration over the range of 2.399–9.596 μg (R2 = 0.9998). The average spike recovery of proanthocyanidin B2 was 97.72% with a RSD of 1.98%. The procyanidins B2 contents of the peel and pulp of several apple varieties were 275.24–548.42 μg/g and 90.19–247.06 μg/g, respectively. Conclusion: This method is simple, fast and reproducible and can be used for the determination of proanthocyanidin B2 in apple.

Key words: high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), apple, proanthocyanidin B2, determination