Two-dimensional hydrophilic interaction chromatography × reversed-phase liquid chromatography for the preparative isolation of potential anti-hepatitis phenylpropanoids from Salvia prattii.

Traditional Tibetan medicine is important for discovery of drug precursors. However, knowledge of the chemical composition of traditional Tibetan medicines is very limited due to the lack of appropriate chromatographic purification methods. In the present work, Salvia prattii was taken as an example, and an off-line hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography/reversed-phase liquid chromatography preparative method was developed for the purification of phenylpropanoids with high purity from a crude sample of Salvia prattii. Based on the separation results of four different chromatographic stationary phases, the first-dimensional preparation was performed on an XAmide preparative column with the crude sample concentration of 62.0 mg/mL, and five main fractions were obtained from the 12.4 g crude sample with a recovery of 54.8%. An XCharge C18 preparative column was applied in the second-dimensional preparation to further isolate the phenylpropanoids from the redissolved first-dimensional fractions with concentration of approximately 50.0 mg/mL. The purities of the phenylpropanoids isolated from the crude sample of Salvia prattii were higher than 98%, indicating that the method was efficient for the purification of phenylpropanoids with high purity from Salvia prattii. Additionally, this method showed great potential in the preparation of phenylpropanoids and can serve as a good example for the purification of phenylpropanoids from other plant materials.