Simultaneous and rapid quantification of multi-compounds in Nauclea officinalis based on UPLC-DAD

Nauclea officinalis is a Li-folk medicine in China, with antimalarial, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties. However, the phytochemicals of Nauclea officinalis have not yet been comprehensively researched. In this paper, a reliable and efficient approach based on ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) with a diode array detector (DAD) was firstly established for simultaneous quantification of alkaloids, flavonoids, and phenolic acids in N. officinalis resources. The samples were extracted using ultrasound with 60 % ethanol for 20 min (1:50 g/mL), and analyzed by the developed UPLC-DAD method. Under the optimized extraction and chromatographic conditions, the proposed approach showed favorable performance in terms of the linearity (R-2 > 0.9998), precision (RSD < 3.75 %), repeatability (RSD < 0.86 %), stability (RSD < 2.14 %), and accuracy (with the recovery rates between 95.15 % and 105.49 %) within an extremely short running time (12 min). Moreover, the developed approach was successfully employed in the quantification of ten phytochemicals in different parts (leaves, branches and trunks) of Nauclea officinalis. Based on analytical results, the content of ten phytochemicals in different organs of Nauclea officinalis was significantly different, and the superior contents of these phytochemicals were located in the leaves compared to the branches and trunks. In summary, the current work established an effective method for the assay of multi-compounds, which could supply a basis of the quality control and comprehensive utilization for Nauclea officinalis.