SIMULTANEOUS QUANTIFICATION OF TWO MAJOR ACTIVE COMPONENTS IN RADIXANGELICA SINENSISBY HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY WITH AN INTERNAL STANDARD CORRECTION METHOD

Ligustilide and ferulic acid are the major active components in Angelica sinensis (Oliv.) Diels (AS). However, no simple and practical method to determine AS is available because the reference substance of ligustilide is difficult to prepare, unstable, and expensive. Recently, the Internal Standard Correction Method (ISCM) by high-performance liquid chromatography was developed to determine ligustilide and ferulic acid in AS simultaneously. In the present article, ferulic acid is used as the internal reference standard, and its content is determined via an external standard method. The relative correction factor (RCF) of ligustilide to ferulic acid is calculated. Ligustilide content is determined by the ISCM, which is calculated using ferulic acid content and its RCF. The accuracy of the new method is evaluated by comparing the calculated contents with the determined contents in 22 batches of samples collected from different areas. Upon validation of the analysis procedures, the calculated and determined contents in 22 batches of AS show no significant difference. The calculated RCF has a confidence value of 0.2209. The relative retention time of ligustilide to ferulic acid is 16.918 min. The proposed method was developed on the premise that it could determine ligustilide and ferulic acid simultaneously without the reference substance of ligustilide. Hence, it is a simple, sensitive, and reliable method for the quality control of AS and Chinese herbal preparations containing AS.