Determination of mangiferin, jateorrhizine, palmatine, berberine, cinnamic acid, and cinnamaldehyde in the traditional Chinese medicinal preparation Zi-Shen pill by high-performance liquid chromatography.

High-performance liquid chromatography is employed to determine the contents of six marker components such as mangiferin, jateorrhizine, palmatine, berberine, cinnamic acid, and cinnamaldehyde in the traditional Chinese medicinal preparation Zi-Shen pill. The separation is performed on a C(18) column by stepwise gradient elution with water (0.2%, v/v, triethylamine adjusted to pH 4 with phosphoric acid)-methanol-acetonitrile (0.01 min, 98:0:2; 20 min, 80:5:15; 30 min, 65:13:22; and 55 min, 65:13:22) as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.9 mL/min, with UV detection at 280 nm. Six regression equations show good linear relationships between the peak area of each marker and concentration. The recoveries of the markers listed are 95.5%, 98.3%, 96.8%, 99.5%, 101.7%, and 102.1%, respectively. The repeatability and reproducibility (relative standard deviation) of the method are less than 2.5% and 3.3%, respectively.