Moringa oleifera Lam. has been used as a medicinal plant in tropical and subtropical countries. Crypto-chlorogenic acid, isoquercetin and astragalin are main antioxidative components in the leaves of this plant. However, there has been no report on the contents of these substances in Moringa oleifera leaves. In the present study, HPLC was performed using a Hypersil BDS C18-column eluted with gradient methanol: 1% acetic acid with a flow rate of 1 mL/min and detection at 334nm. The method was illustrated to be precise with RSD <2%. The average recoveries of crypto-chlorogenic acid, isoquercetin and astragalin were 98.50, 98.47 and 98.59%, respectively. Fourteen samples of M. oleifera leaf extracts were analyzed and the average contents of crypto-chlorogenic acid, isoquercetin and astragalin were found to be 0.07, 0.06 and 0.13% w/w, respectively. This work would be useful as a guidance for standardisation of M. oleifera leaf extract raw materials and their pharmaceutical commercial products.
HPLC chromatogram of 70% ethanolic extract of M. oleifera leaves; 1=crypto-chlorogenic acid, 2=isoquercetin, 3=astragalin
