Determination of components quinatic acid and akeboside St_c commonly contained in mutong of Akebia

With thin layer chromatography(TLC) and high performance liquid chromatography(HPLC) technique, quinatic acid and akeboside Stc were found for the first time as commonly contained components in the 20 medicine materials of three Mutong species of Akebia (A. quinata, A. trifoliata and A. trifoliata var. aust-ralis) with different producing area and different growing period. A HPLC method was achieved for determinating the two commonly contained components. The samples were separated well at 25 °C in 50 minutes using Agilent SB-C ₁₈(4.6 mm ×250 mm, 5 μm) column with acetonitrile- water(volume ratio is 65:35) as mobile phase. The flow speed, detection wavelength and injection volume was set as 1 mL/min, 203 nm and 20 (μL, respectively. The recoveries accorded with the stipulation of content determination. The assayings of the two commonly contained components with the method showed that all of the 20 samples contained the two components, but very differently in content. The existence of quinatic acid in other plants has not been reported yet, this is useful for revising the quality standard in Chinese Pharmacopeia for Mutong from Akebia.