Aim To develop and determine pinoresinol diglucopyranoside in Qing'e Pill, atraditional Chinese compound preparation containing Eucommia ulmoides Oliv. as the principal drug,by a reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method (RP-HPLC) . Methods The extract ofQing'e Pill was refluxed with 75% ethanol, purified on an AB-8 macroporous adsorption resin columnand then injected into HPLC system. The HPLC assay was performed on an ODS analytical column with amixture of methanol-acetonitrile-water (24:3:78, V/V/V) as the mobile phase at a flow-rate of 1.0mL·min^(-1), and a UV detector set at 227 nm. Results Good linearity between peak area andconcentration was found in the range of 5.5 - 170 μg·mL^(-1) for pinoresinol diglucopyranoside ( r> 0.9998) . The average recovery was 99.3%. The intra-day assay RSD and the inter-day assay RSDwere 1.3% and 2.8%, respectively (n = 5). The content of pinoresinol diglucopyranoside in Qing'ePill was determined to be 0.446 +- 0.012 mg·g^(-1) (n = 10). Conclusion The RP-HPLC method wasproved to be sensitive, specific, accurate and precise for the determination of pinoresinoldiglucopyranoside in Qing' e Pill.
