Separation and purification of verticine and verticinone from Bulbus Fritillariae Thunbergii by high-speed counter-current chromatography coupled with evaporative light scattering detection.

High-speed counter-current chromatography (HSCCC) coupled with evaporative light scattering detection (ELSD) was successfully applied to preparative separation and purification of verticine and verticinone from crude extracts of Bulbus Fritillariae Thunbergii by a one-step separation, using chloroform-ethanol-0.2mol L(-1) hydrochloric acid (3:2:2, v/v/v) as a solvent system. HPLC analysis of the fractions collected on the preparative HSCCC of 200mg of crude extracts showed that the purity of verticine (25.6mg) was 96.8% and that of verticinone (10.3mg) was 95.4%. The chemical identities of these components were confirmed by (1)H NMR and EI-MS.