Sensitive high-performance anion-exchange chromatographic determination of paeoniflorin and albiflorin by pulsed amperometric detection after solid-phase extraction.

We developed a method to simultaneously determine paeoniflorin and albiflorin levels using high-performance anion-exchange liquid chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection (HPAEC-PAD). The main principle of our method includes solid-phase extraction step using Amberlite XAD-2 sorbent to remove sugars and to selectively determine glycosides by PAD. Under these conditions, the linear dynamic range was 0.01-100 microg/mL, and the albiflorin and paeoniflorin detection limits (S/N=3) were 5 and 10 pg, respectively. The intra- and inter-day precisions (RSDs) were <5.07%, and the average recoveries from Paeoniae Radix and Si-ni-san ranged from 97.12 to 101.15%. Our method showed high selectivity, high sensitivity, and good repeatability for analyzing albiflorin and paeoniflorin in oriental medicinal preparation.