Rapid analysis of terpene lactones in extract of Ginkgo biloba L. by high performance liquid chromatography.

A new rapid analytical method was developed for the quantification of terpene lactones (bilobalide(BB) and ginkgolide A, B, C, J) in extract of Ginkgo biloba L. (EGb) using a liquid-liquid solvent extraction procedure followed by high performance liquid chromatography. EGb was dissolved in 30% ethanol and extracted with ether. After evaporation, the residue was then determined by HPLC on a C18 column with methanol-water-orthophosphoric acid (25:75:0.1, V/V) as eluent and refractive index (RI) detection. Results showed that the excellent sample clean-up procedure is more simple and specific, and saves more time (less than 20 min) than any other methods that have been reported, and also leads to high recoveries (> 99.0%) and low RSDs (< 2.0%). The reproducible method is regarded to be very useful for evaluating the quality of extract of Ginkgo biloba L.