Efficient extraction and rapid quantitative determination of nucleoside compounds from Cordyceps jiangxiensis, a new Cordyceps producing-cordycepin

摘要

Cordyceps, a well-known and precious traditional Chinese medicine, has received increasing attention worldwide due to its outstanding curative effects for different diseases. Nucleosides are the main active compounds of Cordyceps, and are usually the chemical marker used for the quality control of Cordyceps and its bioproduct. In this study, an optimal condition for extracting nucleosides in Cordyceps jiangxiensis was achieved by an orthogonal design as follows: 15% ethanol-water extraction solvent, 10 min extraction time, 20:1 solvent to sample ratio, and 1 extraction frequency. Also, a simple, rapid, and reliable method by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Diode-Array Detection (HPLC-DAD) was successfully used to simultaneously and qualitatively identify seven nucleosides compounds in C. jiangxiensis. Determination was achieved on a Shimadzu VP-ODS column (4.6 × 250 mm i.d. 5 μm) using a gradient elution with a methanol/water mobile phase. All calibration curves showed good linearity (R2>0.99) within the test ranges. The overall relative standard deviations for intra- and inter-day of seven analytes were less than 4.2%. Under the developed method, the findings indicated that uridine was the most abundant nucleoside, adenosine was inferior to uridine, and cordycepin with antitumor activity was also detected in C. jiangxiensis. The method developed might be applied as an alternative approach in assessing the quality of other Cordyceps species.