Quantitation of seven polyoxypregnane glycosides in Marsdenia tenacissima using reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography-evaporative light-scattering detection

A high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with an evaporative light scattering detector (HPLC-ELSD) has been developed for the simultaneous determination of seven polyoxypregnane glycosides, tenacissosides A, B, G, H, I and marsdenosides C, G, in the stem of Marsdenia tenacissima, a Chinese herbal medicine. With a C18 analytical column, the analytes were separated efficiently using methanol–water as the mobile phase in a gradient program. The method limits of detection ranged from ca. 0.3 μg for marsdenoside C to ca. 0.5 μg for marsdenoside G and the method limits of quantitation from 1.0 μg for marsdenoside C to 1.7 μg for marsdenoside G, respectively. The intra- and inter-day precisions of the method were evaluated and all were less than 4%. All the recoveries for the spiked analytes exceeded 90%. This method was successfully used to analyze 19 samples of the stem of M. tenacissima.