Research Article
Heba Handoussa, Rasha Hanaf
Abstract
Computer–assisted HPLC method development is a tool that uses Design-of- Experiment techniques to optimize HPLC methods with minimal time and cost, especially for complex mixtures like natural extracts. Corchorus olitorius and Vitis vinifera are common edible plants in north Africa that contain a variety of active constituents that have not been completely determined. The aim of this work is to develop and optimize a chromatographic method for the separation and mass spectrometric determination of major components in both herbs. The approach did not use a laboratory prepared mixture of standards, rather it used the extract itself to build the response surface that relates resolution to gradient time and temperature. The predicted optimum conditions are column temperature = 30, 50°C, gradient time = 100, 25 min from 5% to 100% acetonitrile for both Corchorus olitorius and Vitis vinifera, respectively at flow rate of 1 mL min-1. These in-silico conditions showed capacity factors in range of (88.5-96%) within the fact of complexity of their matrices. Several metabolites were identified in both edible plants using HPLC-PDA-HRESI-MSn including flavonoids, glycosides and phenolic acids.