ANALYSIS OF TANNINS IN FRUCTUS CHEBULAE AND ITS CONFUSION VARIETIES BY HPCE

AIM　To analyze the hydrolyzable tannins chebulinic acid (I) and chebulagic acid(II) in Fructus Chebulae and its confusion varieties by using high performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE) method. METHODS　Using a capillary (375 μm OD×50 μm ID; 81.5 cm×61.5 cm) and a power supply set at 24 kV, with phosphate-borate buffer containing 20 mmol·L^-1 Na₂HPO₄-60 mmol·L^-1 boric acid and a UV detector at 280 nm, sample solution was loaded in decompression mode at the positive end of the capillary, the loading time was 5 s. RESULTS　The linear ranges of I and II were 0.0842-0.842 and 0.0940-0.940 mg·mL^-1 respectively, the correlation coefficient were 0.9966 and 0.9957, the average recoveries were 95.6% (RSD=4.0%, n=5) and 95.0% (RSD=4.4%, n=5), the RSDs (n=5) of measurement precision test were 2.2% and 1.7%, the RSDs (n=6) of reproduction test were 5.4% and 4.0% respectively. The contents of I and II were obviously interrelated with the variety and characteristics of Fructus Chebulae, the contents of I and II in the confusion varieties of Fructus Chebulae were very low. CONCLUSION　It is suitable to use I and II as the criterion in quality evaluation of Fructus Chebulae, and the HPCE method is effective for quality evaluation of the crude Fructus Chebulae.