Simultaneous determination of bioactive phenolic compounds in the stem extract of Rhus verniciflua stokes by high performance liquid chromatography.

A simple, sensitive, and precise reversed-phase liquid chromatographic method was developed for the quantitative determination of 4 bioactive phenolic compounds (gallic acid, fustin, fisetin, and sulfuretin) from the stem extract of Rhus verniciflua stokes. Chromatographic analysis was performed on a Capcell Pak C18 column (150 × 4.6 mm, 3 μm) with a mobile phase consisting of 0.1% formic acid and 90% acetonitrile at a flow rate of 1 mL/min. Quantitation was performed using a UV-vis detector at 260 nm. The method was validated in terms of selectivity, linearity, accuracy, precision, and recovery. Excellent linear behavior was observed over the investigated concentration range (10-500 μg/mL for gallic acid, fustin, and fisetin; 0.5-100 μg/mL for sulfuretin) with correlation coefficient (r(2)) values >0.99. The intra- and inter-day precision over the concentration range of compounds was less than 6.65% (relative standard deviation) and the accuracy was between 92.42% and 103.62%. The mean recoveries for all the analytes were more than 92.18%. This method was successfully applied for the analysis of bioactive phenolic compounds in the R. verniciflua extracts.