Rapid Identification of Common Secondary Metabolites of Medicinal Herbs Using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Evaporative Light Scattering Detector in Extracts
Kiran Ali,
Arslan Ali,
Muhammad Noman Khan,
Saeedur Rahman,
Shaheen Faizi,
Muhammad Shaiq Ali,
Shaden A. M. Khalifa,
Hesham R. El-Seedi,
Syed Ghulam Musharraf
Affiliations
Kiran Ali
H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry, International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Karachi, Karachi 75270, Pakistan
Arslan Ali
Dr. Panjwani Center for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research, International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Karachi, Karachi 75270, Pakistan
Muhammad Noman Khan
H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry, International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Karachi, Karachi 75270, Pakistan
Saeedur Rahman
H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry, International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Karachi, Karachi 75270, Pakistan
Shaheen Faizi
H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry, International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Karachi, Karachi 75270, Pakistan
Muhammad Shaiq Ali
H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry, International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Karachi, Karachi 75270, Pakistan
Shaden A. M. Khalifa
Department of Molecular Biosciences, The Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Hesham R. El-Seedi
Department of Molecular Biosciences, The Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Syed Ghulam Musharraf
H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry, International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Karachi, Karachi 75270, Pakistan
The discovery and identification of novel natural products of medicinal importance in the herbal medicine industry becomes a challenge. The complexity of this process can be reduced by dereplication strategies. The current study includes a method based on high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), using the evaporative light scattering detector (ELSD) to identify the 12 most common secondary metabolites in plant extracts. Twelve compounds including rutin, taxifolin, quercetin, apigenin, kaempferol, betulinic acid, oleanolic acid, betulin, lupeol, stigmasterol, and β-sitosterol were analyzed simultaneously. The polarity of the compounds varied greatly from highly polar (flavonoids) to non-polar (triterpenes and sterols). This method was also tested for HPLC-DAD and HPLC-ESI-MS/MS analysis. Oleanolic acid and ursolic acid could not be separated in HPLC-ELSD analysis but were differentiated using LC-ESI-MS/MS analysis due to different fragment ions. The regression values (R2 > 0.996) showed good linearity in the range of 50–1000 µg/mL for all compounds. The range of LOD and LOQ values were 7.76–38.30 µg/mL and 23.52–116.06 µg/mL, respectively. %RSD and % trueness values of inter and intraday studies were mostly <10%. This method was applied on 10 species of medicinal plants. The dereplication strategy has the potential to facilitate and shorten the identification process of common secondary metabolites in complex plant extracts.
