Simultaneous determination of five saponins in Yaobitong capsule by HPLC-CAD

A high performance liquid chromatography charged aerosol detector (HPLC-CAD) method was established for the simultaneous determination of five saponins (notoginsenoside R1, ginsenoside Rg1, ginsenoside Re, ginsenoside Rb1, Ginsenoside Rd) in Yaobitong capsule, providing a method for quality control. The sample was extracted with methanol and chromatographic separation was performed on a Waters Xbridge Phenol column (150 mm×4.6 mm, 3.5 μm) using acetonitrile-water as the mobile phase with gradient elution at a flow rate of 1.0 mL·min^-1. The column temperature was 30℃ and the injection volume was 10 μL. The nebulizer temperature of CAD was 35℃ and the air pressure was 60.2 psi, the filtration was 3.6 s, and the collection frequency was 5 Hz. Notoginsenoside R1, ginsenoside Rg1, ginsenoside Re, ginsenoside Rb1 and ginsenoside Rd showed a good linear relationship in the range of 16.96-203.5 μg·mL^-1 (R²=0.999 3), 54.46-653.5 μg·mL^-1 (R²=0.999 3), 10.96-131.5 μg·mL^-1 (R²=0.999 6), 51.50-618.0 μg·mL^-1 (R²=0.999 0), 15.94-191.3 μg·mL^-1 (R²=0.999 4), respectively. The average recoveries were 98.96%, 100.8%, 94.76%, 100.1%, 103.1%, and RSDs were 0.87%, 1.46%, 1.85%, 2.06%, 0.96% (n=6), respectively. The proposed method is accurate, simple and reliable, and can be used for the determination of five saponins in Yaobitong capsule.