Comparison of high-speed counter-current chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography on fingerprinting of Chinese traditional medicine

Active constituents of Chinese traditional medicine (CTM) are influenced by soils, climates, and growth stages. Therefore, fingerprint is important in quality control of CTM. Our studies showed for the first time that high-speed counter-current chromatography (HSCCC) could be applied in the development of fingerprint of CTM. Twelve components were separated from extracts of three crude samples of Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge, which were collected from different growth locations. All 12 components of each sample were isolated within 13 h coming with good correspondence by using HSCCC. Relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) values of the retention time in HSCCC separation was less than 3% satisfied the precision requirements of national standards in the fingerprint development. As a new approach, HSCCC was compared to the conventional approach-HPLC in our experiments. The fingerprint developed by HPLC comprised 11 peaks that collected within 45 min. R.S.D. values of retention times of the corresponding peaks in HPLC analysis were very small (maximum 0.66% and average 0.10%). In conclusion, HSCCC was a feasible method to be used in the development of fingerprint of CTM.