ABSTRACT
Objective: To establish an ultra-performance liquid chromatography(UPLC)method for the simul-taneous determination of four sesquiterpene lactones, deoxyelephantopin, isodeoxyelephantopin, isoscabertopin and sca- bertopin in Elephantopus scaber Linn.. Methods: The UPLC conditions were as follows: the separation was performed using an Acquity UPLC BEH C18(2.1 mm × 100 mm, 1.7 μm)column, the temperature of the column was maintained at 40℃, and the detection wavelength was 220 nm. The mobile phase was the water and acetonitrile solution in a binary gra- dient elution at the flow rate of 0.3 ml/min. Results: The four components, deoxyelephantopin, isodeoxyelephantopin, isoscabertopin and scabertopin were separated well under the UPLC conditions and showed a good linearity within the ranges of 0.383-76.500(R2=0.9999), 0.775-155.0(R2=0.9999), 0.507-101.5(R2=0.9999), and 0.850-(R2=0.9997), respectively. Their average recovery(n=6)was 102.31%, 103.87%, 102.66% and 105.68%, RSD was 1.20%, 2.00%, 1.24% and 1.73%, respectively. The four components were validated by the simultaneous termination in eleven batches of E. scaber samples from different areas in the present study. Conclusion: lished UPLC method could be used for the determination of four sesquiterpene lactones, deoxyelephantopin, elephantopin, isoscabertopin and scabertopin in E. scaber. The present results provide a reference for further velopment and quality evaluation of E. scaber.