Preparative Purification of the Major Flavonoid Glabridin from Licorice Roots by Solid Phase Extraction and Preparative High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Abstract This study investigated a novel, simple, and economical method for the preparation and purification of glabridin from licorice roots. Glabridin was initially obtained from ethyl acetate extraction of licorice, followed by using solid phase extraction (SPE) and preparative high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The content of glabridin increased from 0.23% to 35.2% after SPE, and then a 16 mg product at a high purity of over 95% was obtained from 10 g licorice roots after purification by preparative HPLC. The purity was assessed by analytical HPLC, and the purified compound was characterized by LC-MS/MS and 1H NMR. Keywords: glabridinlicoricepreparative high performance liquid chromatographypurificationsolid phase extraction ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors acknowledge financial support from the Natural Science Foundation of China (20576010, 20776009) and the Program for New Century Excellent Talents (NCET-05-0117).