Simultaneous determination of nine marker compounds in the traditional Korean medicine, Dangguisu san by high performance liquid chromatography

Background: Dangguisu-san (DGSS) has been widely used to treat ecchymosis, blood stagnation and pain resulting from physical shock in Korea. Objective: A high performance liquid chromatography–photodiode array detection (HPLC–PDA) method for simultaneous analysis of nine components, albiflorin (1), paeoniflorin (2), liquiritin (3), nodakenin (4), coumarin (5), liquiritigenin (6), cinnamic acid (7), cinnamaldehyde (8), and glycyrrhizin (9) in DGSS extract has been developed for the first time. Materials and Methods: The analytical column for separation of the nine constituents used a Gemini C₁₈ column kept at 40°C by the gradient elution with 1.0% (v/v) acetic acid in water and 1.0% (v/v) acetic acid in acetonitrile as mobile phase. The flow rate was 1.0 mL/min and the injection volume was 10 μL. Results: Calibration curves of all compounds showed good linearity (r² ≥ 0.9999) within the test ranges. The limits of detection and quantification for all analytes were 0.01–0.27 μg/mL and 0.04–0.89 μg/mL, respectively. All recoveries of the nine marker compounds were 96.62–102.47% with relative standard deviations (RSD) <1.72%. The RSDs of intra day and inter day precision were <1.32% and 1.61%, respectively. The amounts of the nine marker components ranged from 0.10 mg/g to 13.71 mg/g. Conclusion: The developed and validated HPLC–PDA method may help for the quality control of DGSS.