Rapid high-performance liquid chromatography method to quantitate elaterinide in juice and reconstituted residues from a bitter mutant of Hawkesbury watermelon

A C-18 reversed-phase HPLC method has been developed to analyze the concent ration of 2-O-beta-D-glycopyranosyl-cucurbitacin E (synonym, elaterinide) i n juice or reconstituted residues of juice derived from a bitter mutant of Hawkesbury watermelon, Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. & Nakai. The meth od requires only two steps (homogenation and filtration) for sample prepara tion prior to column injection and, thus, is amenable to processing large n umbers of test samples. Percent elaterinide in juice samples from whole fru it, processed in various ways, ranged from 0.0230 to 0.0808%. Error differe nces in percent elaterinide for repetitive analyses within the same lot of juice ranged from 1.2 to 5.6%.