Group Isolation and High Performance Liquid Chromatographic Analysis of Lactones in Chuanxiong

Abstract Lactones are the main active compounds of the Chinese medicinal material, Chuanxiong. A simple, sensitive, and rapid solvent extraction method was developed for the group isolation of lactones from Chuanxiong. The mixture of main lactones (senkyunolide‐H, senkyunolide‐I, sedanenolide, and Z‐ligustilide) and the mixture of two senkyunolides (H and I) in the lactones have been isolated. A high performance liquid chromatographic method, with gradient elution, was also established for the separation and analysis of the lactones in extracted products and Chuanxiong. The identification of the lactones in the extracted products was carried out by HPLC combined with MS.