Fingerprinting of Marsdenia tenacissima by capillary electrophoresis compared to HPLC.

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is employed for the first time in a fingerprint analysis of Marsdenia tenacissima. Because the CE method is a new approach to fingerprinting, it is necessary to compare it to the conventional one: high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). In HPLC separation, 15 components are separated in 55 min, while in CE separation, 10 stable components are separated by 200 mM boric acid (pH 8.0) containing 10% methanol within 12 min. CE shows better performance in the analysis of Marsdenia tenacissima, which makes its fingerprint in a much lower analysis time than with HPLC. It is further proven that CE can be a feasible and cost-effective method for the development of the fingerprint of Marsdenia tenacissima.