An Identification and Study of Amino Acids of Erigeron annuus Herb

Abstract

Amino acids in the extract of Erigeron annuus herb were determined using an automatic precolumn derivatization with fluorenylmethyl-chloroformate and reversed-phase liquid chromatography with fluorescence and UV Vis detection. This objective is reached with automatic derivatization using o-phthalaldehyde (OPA) for primary amino acids and 9-Fluorenylmethyl chloroformate (FMOC) for secondary amino acids. Then derivatization integrates into high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The applied procedure is fast with easily reproduced results. The insufficient knowledge about amino acids composition of herb of Erigeron annuus is the basis for study. This work reports on content of 16 free and bound amino acids (391.41 μg/mg) in the plant raw material and influence’s evaluation of different extraction types on the amino acid profile. The total content of free amino acids was 4.66 μg/mg; proline prevailed (2.498 μg/mg). The total content of bound amino acids was 386.7 μg/mg; proline (146.8 μg/mg), arginine (67.8 μg/mg), phenylalanine (25.8 μg/mg), asparagine (24.3 μg/mg), histidine (20.4 μg/mg), alanine (18.2 μg/mg), serine (16.6 μg/mg), valine (16.0 μg/mg) were the dominant amino acids. Nine amino acids were classified as essential.