Development and validation of an ultra high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of a diastereomeric impurity in (+)-pinoresinol diglucoside chemical reference substance

(+)-Pinoresinol 4,4'-di-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside ((+)-PDG) is one of the major Lignans with various pharmacological activities which could be isolated from Duzhong and other plant species. In this study, a diastereomeric impurity, (-)-pinoresinol 4,4'-di-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside ((-)-PDG), the main impurity was identified in (+)-PDG chemical reference substance (CRS) and a reliable chromatographic method for rapid purity determination of (+)-PDG CRS was firstly developed. The optimal chromatographic condition was found to be using ACN/1,4-dioxane-water (2.5:6:91.5, v/v/v) as mobile phase on a Waters Acquity UPLC HSS T3 column (2.1 mm x 100 mm, 1.8 microm) with column temperature of 37 degrees C. The method was validated and applied to determine the chromatographic purity of five (+)-PDG CRS samples. The content of (-)-PDG in four commercial (+)-PDG CRS was 8.47-20.30%, whereas no (-)-PDG was detected in our in-house prepared (+)-PDG CRS in which purity was confirmed to be 99.80%. The above results confirmed that this method is fast and highly efficient for purity determination of the (+)-PDG CRS.