Comparative Validations of Capillary Electrophoresis and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Methods for the Simultaneous Determination of Five Anthraquinones in Compound Rhubarb Enema

Wonderful Natural Drugs with Surprising Nutritional Values, Rheum Species, Gifts of the Nature

Abstract:

Nutrition therapy on the basis of traditional medicinal plants and herbs is common in many Asian countries, especially Iran and China. Rheum species, especially rhubarbs, belong to plant medicines recognized in 2500 BC. An online search of the literature was carried out at Pubmed/Medline, Scopus, and Google scholar, covering all years until April 2021. The following key terms were used, usually in combinations: Rheum species, rhubarb, natural products, pharmaceutical benefits, anthraquinones and anthranone. After performing the literature search, the bibliographies of all articles were checked for cross-references that were not found in the search databases. Articles were selected if they reported any biological effects, ethnomedicinal uses, phytochemical compounds and botanical description of Rheum species. The most important components of rhubarb are anthraquinones, anthranone, stilbenes, tannins and butyrophenones. Anthraquinones consist of rhein, emodin, aloe-emodin and chrysophanl, and anthranone includes sennosides and rheinosides. The most important health benefits of rhubarb are antioxidant and anticancer activities, antimicrobial activity, wound healing action, hepatoprotective and anti-diabetic effects, and nephroprotective effect, as well as anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antibacterial activities. Integration of both traditional pharmaceutical science and modern medicines may promote sustainability, lead to organic life and promote the cultivation of medicinal plants.

Analysis of anthraquinones in rhubarb (Rheum palmatum and Rheum officinale) by supercritical fluid chromatography

The first report on the separation of five anthraquinones (chrysophanol, physcion, emodin, aloeemodin, and rhein) from rhubarb by supercritical fluid chromatography indicates that this technique is an interesting analytical alternative not just for non-polar substances. Within less than five minutes the compounds could be baseline resolved, using a mobile phase comprising supercritical carbon dioxide and methanol with 0.05% diethylamine. The optimum stationary phase showed to be an Acquity UPC(2) HSS C18 SB 1.8 µm column, operated at a flow rate of 2 ml/min and a temperature of 30 °C. Method validation confirmed that the developed procedure is selective, linear (R(2)≥0.999), accurate (recovery rates: 95.4% to 103.1%), and precise (intra-day≤6.9%, inter-day≤4.7%); the limit of detection was below 0.5 ng on-column. The analysis of plant extracts was feasible with acceptable repeatability (σrel≤3.8%), and it determined 0.3 to 0.7% of free aglyca in the native samples. After hydrolysis according to the European Pharmacopoeia, a rise in the total content up to 2.1% was observed, with rhein being the most dominant derivative in nearly all specimens.