ENANTIOMERIC RATIO OF SHIKONIN DERIVATIVES AS A POSSIBLE KEY FOR THE DETERMINATION OF THE ORIGIN OF LITHOSPERMI RADIX

An HPLC method was developed to resolve the enantiomers of shikonin de rivatives of the Lithospermi Radix. The optimum mobile phase on a Chir acel AD column was 5% isopropanol in n-hexane with flow rate of 1 ml/m in. Establishment of this method made possible to determine the ratios of shikonin/acetylshikonin or alkanin/acetylalkanin in the same root. The correlation of the ratios of these substance pairs appeared chara cteristic for the country where they were originated from. All of the Korean species showed significantly higher ratios of shikonin/acetylsh ikonin and alkanin/acetylalkanin than the Chinese ones. This method wo uld be useful to determine the origin of Lithospermi Radix.