Tong Yingpeng, Yan Yongqiu, Zhu Xingyi, Liu Ruoxi, Gong Feng, Zhang Ling, Wang Ping
Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Engineering of Ministry of Education, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China.
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The University of Miami Leonard of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA.
Pharmacogn Mag. 2015 Jul-Sep;11(43):540-5. doi: 10.4103/0973-1296.160467.
Saffron, which is made up of the dried stigmas of Crocus sativus L., has been successfully cultivated in China since 1970s and Zhejiang province is now the largest producing area in China, but the contents of crocetin esters and picrocrocin in saffron from Zhejiang province has not been determined simultaneously by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and changes of these constituents in Chinese saffron during storage for years has not been studied.
To establish a simple method quantification of the five main compounds including picrocrocin and four crocetin esters in saffron from main producing areas of China and study the influence of storage time on the changes of saffron constituents.
A simple, sensitive, and accurate HPLC method was developed for simultaneous determination of five major active components in saffron and eight samples which collected from the same farm of Zhejiang province in different years were analyzed.
The correlation coefficient values (R (2) > 0.9997) indicated good correlations between the investigated compounds' concentrations and their peak areas within the test ranges. The limits of quantification and detection of the five compounds were 0.53-2.76 μg/mL and 0.11-0.77 μg/mL, respectively. The recoveries ranged from 94.67% to 101.31%, and the overall relative standard deviations for intra-day and inter-day were lower than 3.49%. The method was applied to study the changes of crocetin esters and picrocrocin contents in saffron samples during 15 years of storage. The losses of crocetin esters and picrocrocin in saffron with 1 -year storage were 52.2% and 54.3%, respectively. The trend then declined during subsequent storage.
The developed method can be applied to the intrinsic quality control of saffron.
藏红花由番红花的干燥柱头制成，自20世纪70年代以来已在中国成功种植，浙江省是目前中国最大的产区，但尚未采用高效液相色谱法（HPLC）同时测定浙江省藏红花中藏红花酸酯和苦藏花素的含量，也未研究国产藏红花在多年储存过程中这些成分的变化。
建立一种简单的方法来定量测定中国主要产区藏红花中包括苦藏花素和四种藏红花酸酯在内的五种主要化合物，并研究储存时间对藏红花成分变化的影响。
建立了一种简单、灵敏、准确的HPLC方法，用于同时测定藏红花中的五种主要活性成分，并对从浙江省同一农场不同年份采集的八个样品进行了分析。
相关系数值（R (2)>0.9997）表明，在所测范围内，所研究化合物的浓度与其峰面积之间具有良好的相关性。五种化合物的定量限和检测限分别为0.53 - 2.76μg/mL和0.11 - 0.77μg/mL。回收率在94.67%至101.31%之间，日内和日间的总体相对标准偏差低于3.49%。该方法用于研究藏红花样品在储存15年期间藏红花酸酯和苦藏花素含量的变化。储存1年的藏红花中藏红花酸酯和苦藏花素的损失分别为52.2%和54.3%。随后储存期间，这种下降趋势继续。
所建立的方法可应用于藏红花的内在质量控制。
