RP-HPLC Determination of Taxol and 10-Deacetylbaccatin III in Different Harvesting Time of Taxus chinensis Var. Mairei from China

Abstract

Taxus chinensis var. mairei is well known as anticancer plant. Its main anticancer compounds taxol and 10-deacetylbaccatin III and other diterpenoids have a strong anticancer effects, on clinical practice for the treatment of advanced breast cancer, ovarian cancer and other cancers, has a significant effect. This study established a method for the determination of taxol and 10-deacetylbaccatin III of Taxus chinensis var. mairei and to carry out an experiment for the quantitative determination of taxol and 10-deacetylbaccatin III of branches and leaves in different harvesting time of Taxus chinensis var. mairei. An HPLC method was adopted with Sunfire ODS C18 column (250 × 4.6 mm, 5 μm) with the mobile phase consisting of water-acetonitrile (A-B) by gradient program ( 0-20 min, 30 % A; 20-35 min, 30 % A ® 55 % A, 35-43 min, 55 % A). The flow rate was 1.0 mL min^-1 with the column temperature was 30 °C and UV detection wavelength at 232 nm. The linear range of taxol was 0.020-0.400 μg (r = 0.9993) with the average recovery of 100.49 %, the linear range of 10-DAB III was 0.010-0.200 μg (r = 0.9995) with the average recovery of 99.65 %. The content of the order of two active ingredients of different growth years of Taxus chinensis var. mairei is: 3 years > 4 years > 2 years > 1.5 years > 5 years. In different harvesting period, the highest content of taxol and 10-deacetylbaccatin III of Taxus chinensis var. mairei is harvested in May and June. The method is simple, accurate and reproducible, and it is applicable for the quality control of Taxus chinensis var. mairei.