Quantitative determination of enhydrin in leaf rinse extracts and in glandular trichomes of Smallanthus sonchifolius (Asteraceae) by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography

A simple, reliable and rapid reversed-phase HPLC-PAD procedure for the characterisation and quantitative determination of the anti-diabetic sesquiterpene lactone enhydrin (1) from Smallanthus sonchifolius (yacón) has been evaluated and validated. The approach focused on the analysis of various leaf rinse extracts, as well as the glandular trichomes of intact leaves, in which 1 was the major compound detected. The best sample preparation of a rinse extract yielded 0.67 mg/mL of 1, whilst a rapid rinse of a small piece of one dried leaf gave 0.09 mg/mL of 1; the highest concentration obtained from a glandular extract was 0.07 mg/mL. The dried leaves of S. sonchifolius were found to contain a total of 0.97% of 1.