Identification and determination of the active compounds in Gastrodia elata Blume by HPLC

A simple, sensitive, and specific high-performance liquid chromatography me thod has been developed for the simultaneous quantification of the three ma jor biologically active ingredients, gastrodin (GA), 4-hydroxybenzyl alcoho l (HA), and 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde (HD), in Gastrodia elata Blume for the fi rst time. The HPLC assay was performed on a reversed phase ODS column by us ing methanol-water-isopropyl alcohol (35:55:10, v:v:v) as mobile phase with a flow rate of 0.4mL/min. The detection wavelength was set at 270 nm. Regr ession equations revealed linear relationships (correlation coefficients: 0 .9997-0.9999) between the peak area of each constituent (GA, HA, HD) and it s concentration. The relative standard deviations of the retention times of three constituen ts range between 0.2 similar to0.5%. The recoveries for the three constitue nts ranged between 96.6 similar to 98.5%. The GA, HA, HD contents measured 12.0 mg/g (2.53% RSD), 2.1 mg/g (2.04% RSD), and 0.13 mg/g (2.63% RSD), res pectively, in the ethanol extracts of Gastrodia elata Blume.