Simultaneous determination of quercetin, rutin and kaempferol in the leaf extracts of Moringa oleifera Lam. and Raphinus sativus Linn. by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

OBJECTIVE

To develop a rapid and sensitive liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method to analyze quercetin (QU), rutin (RU) and kaempferol (KA) simultaneously in the leaf extracts of Moringa oleifera Lam. and Raphinus sativus Linn.

METHODS

Samples were prepared by extracting the leaves of the M. oleifera and R. sativus by cold-maceration technique using 90% ethanol. Chromatographic separation was operated with a mixture of 0.2% formic acid in water and acetonitrile at a flow rate of 0.4 mL/min on a Phenomenex Gemini C18 column with a total run time of 5.01 min.

RESULTS

The MS/MS ion transitions monitored were 303.03 to 153.1 for QU, 611.1 to 303.1 for RU, 287.1 to 153.2 for KA and 180.1 to 110.1 for internal standard. The lower limit of quantitation achieved for QU, RU and KA was 5 ng/mL and the linearity was observed from 5 to 2 000 ng/mL. The correlation coefficients of linear regression analysis were 0.994 6, 0.995 1 and 0.996 9 for QU, RU and KA, respectively.

CONCLUSION

The results indicate that the LC-MS/MS method is fast and sensitive and may provide excellent specificity for simultaneous determination of QU, RU and KA in leaf extracts of M.oleifera and R.sativus.