Identification and Characterization of Two New Degradation Products of Saikosaponin A under Acid Hydrolytic Conditions

  • Molecules. 2016 Sep 14;21(9):1232. doi: 10.3390/molecules21091232.
Jun Li  1 Qiang Xu  2 Hua Jiang  3
Affiliations
  • 1. College of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Henan University of Science and Technology, Luoyang 471023, China. [email protected].
  • 2. College of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Henan University of Science and Technology, Luoyang 471023, China. [email protected].
  • 3. College of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Henan University of Science and Technology, Luoyang 471023, China. [email protected].
Abstract

Saikosaponin (SS) A is a compound with various pharmacological properties and is easily degraded into SS-B1 and SS-G under acid conditions. In the present work, two new degradation products of SS-A, formed under acid hydrolytic conditions, were detected and isolated using analytical and semi-preparative liquid chromatography technology; furthermore, their structures were characterized as hydroxy-saikosaponin A and SS-B2 by spectral analysis, which is not only essential in stability-indicating method development and validation, but also could be used as a worst case scenario to assess the analytical method performance of SS-A. Moreover, their structural transformation pathways are also proposed.

Keywords
acid hydrolysis; degradation product; saikosaponin A.
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