Preparative isolation and purification of senkyunolide-I, senkyunolide-H and ferulic acid from Rhizoma Chuanxiong using counter-current chromatography

Three active compounds, senkyunolide-I, senkyunolide-H and ferulic acid (FA), were successfully isolated and purified from the extracts of Rhizoma Chuanxiong by counter-current chromatography (CCC). Based on the principle of the partition coefficient values (k) for target compounds and the separation factor (a) between target compounds, the two-phase solvent system that contains n-hexaneethyl acetatemethanolwater at an optimized volume ratio of 3:7:4:6 v/v was selected for the CCC separation, and the lower phase was employed as the mobile phase in the head-to-tail elution mode. In a single run, 400?mg of the crude extract yielded pure senkyunolide-I (6.4?mg), senkyunolide-H (1.7?mg) and FA (4.4?mg) with the purities of 98, 93 and 99%, respectively. The CCC fractions were analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography, and the structures of the three active compounds were identified by MS and 1H NMR.