Synthesis, Purification, and Activity of Salidroside

Abstract Our goal was to synthesise this compound by glucosylation of p‐tyrosol. The 74% yield of the reaction was not satisfactory and instead of optimising the procedure, we preferred to purify the product. This was achieved by high performance centrifugal partition chromatography with an optimised biphasic system followed by a solid phase extraction on a graphitic stationary phase. The final product was found to be pure at 95%. The structure of salidroside was confirmed by both NMR and ESIMS2. Each 13C NMR, 1H NMR, and ESIMS2 signals were attributed to the salidroside structure. The last step of this work was to assess the biological activity of the synthetic salidroside. It was found to be more biologically active than ginsenoside Rb1 on the ATP production rate of keratinocytes.