Simultaneous Estimation of Taraxerol and Taraxasterol in Root Callus Cultures of Taraxacum officinale Weber

A simple, selective, rapid, precise and economical reverse phase high -pressure liquid chromatographic method has been developed for the first time for the simultaneous estimation of Taraxerol and Taraxasterol, in natural root and root callus cultures of Taraxacum officinale (TO) , maintained on MS media using hormone combinations , MS+IAA+BA (2ppm+1ppm) and MS+IAA+BA+2,4 D (0.5ppm+1ppm+0.5ppm). Column of ODS, C8-3 (250 mm x 4.6 mm i.d, partical size 5 μ) was used for the separation with a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile: 0.1% phosphoric acid in methanol (70:30: v/v) at a flow rate of 0.6 ml/min, detection was carried out at 210 nm. The retention time of taraxerol and taraxasterol were 4.975, 3.5 min. respectively. The developed method was validated in terms of accuracy, precision, linearity, l imit of detection, limit of quantification. The proposed method can be used for estimation of these compounds in herbal formu lations as well in crude drug extracts.