Planta Med 2010; 76 - P46
DOI: 10.1055/s-0030-1251808

Analysis of Ginsenosides in Different Ginseng Populations Using HPLC-UV and HPLC-ESI-MS Methods

F Zeng 1, 2, W Wang 3, XM Wang 2, RX Liu 2, Y Liang 2, M Yang 2, IA Khan 3, DA Guo 1, 2
  • 1School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 10083, P. R. China
  • 2Shanghai Research Center for Modernization of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, CAS, Guo Shoujing Road 199, Shanghai 201203, P. R. China
  • 3Sino-US TCM Research Center, National Center for Natural Products Research, Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677, USA

Wild ginseng often grows under the fitting conditions of temperature, sunlight, water, solid, landform and vegetation [1]. In this present study, we set up an appropriate method by HPLC-UV to investigate the eight major ginsenosides (including Rg1, Re, Rf, Rb1, Rb2, Rb3, Rc and Rd) content in wild ginseng and cultivated ginseng populations. The results indicated that the mean total ginsenosides content in wild ginseng is above three times higher than cultivated ginseng. The dendrogram (Figure 2) showed that there was strong correlation between Rc, Rb2 and Rb3, and their Pearson correlation coefficients were above 0.928 (p<0.001). Case cluster analysis was carried out with the selected variables including Rb1, Rb2, Rd, Re and Rf. There was remarkable difference between wild ginseng and cultivated ginseng populations. High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with MS2 was applied to investigate the ginsenosides in eight wild ginsengs and one standard cultivated ginseng. The [M+H]+ ions and their degradation ions were used to identify the molecular masses [2], the aglycone structures and the sugar groups of the ginsenosides. HPLC-ESI-MS2 is an efficient and practical technique for identifying and distinguishing ginsenosides in wild ginseng.

Fig.1: HPLC chromatograms of standard mixture (A), wild ginseng (B) and cultivated ginseng (C) samples.

Fig.2: Cluster analysis dendrogram of 35 ginseng samples. CKG (cultivated Korean ginseng), WG (wild ginseng), CCG (cultivated Chinese ginseng), SWG (substitute of wild ginseng)

References: [1] Fang TF (2003) Identification of Wild Ginseng by Experience [M]. Beijing: People's Medical Publishing House. [2] Liu SY, Cui M, et al. (2004)J Am Soc Mass Spectrom 15: 133–141.