Abstract: A method based on high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was developed for the quantitative determination of six components in an anti-Alzheimer medicine, Xiao-Xu-Ming Decoction, which is an effective prescription in treating stroke and the sequela of stroke by herbalist doctors for thousands years. The effective component group (ECG) was made according to the results of high-throughput screening, and the curative effect of ECG was validated on aging rats. In this method an ODS column was used. The mobile phase consisted of water-formic acid-ethylenediamine (A; 100∶0.1∶0.1, v/v) and methanol-formic acid (B; 100∶0.05, v/v), eluted with gradient (05 min, 20%B; 5100 min, 20%B40%B; 100140 min, 40%B70%B). The flow rate was 1 mL/min. The detection wavelength was set at 240 nm. Under the above separation conditions, six components belonged to two different categories, indicans and alkaloids, were determined simultaneously. The relationships between the concentrations and the peak areas of these six components were all linear. The recoveries of the six components were 99.1% for paeoniflorin, 99.6% for prim-O-glucosylcimifugin, 98.4% for baicalin, 99.9% for 4′-O-β-D-glucosyl-5-O-methylvisamminol, 99.6% for fangchinoline, and 102.0% for tetrandrine. The relative standard deviations (RSD) were 1.3%, 1.4%, 0.4%, 0.8%, 0.2%, and 1.4%, respectively. This method is simple and reproducible and it can be used for the quality control of the effective component group of Xiao-Xu-Ming Decoction.

Key words: anti-Alzheimer’s disease , effective component group (ECG), traditional Chinese medicine compound prescriptions, Xiao-Xu-Ming Decoction, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)