Development and validation of a rapid and accurate ultra performance liquid chromatography-photodiode array method for concurrent quantification of thirty-two polyphenols in edible fruit of Cordia myxa Linn

The aim of current work was to develop a novel, simple, sensitive, and reliable method for screening and quantification of thirty-two polyphenol compounds from Cordia myxa (C. myxa) using Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography Photodiode Array detector (UPLC-PDA). With the help of the quaternary solvent manager and a comparison study of seven different columns packed with silica particles that are less than two micron thick (1.8-2.5 μm), the separation was completed in <35 min. We successfully tested the newly created method, demonstrating its sufficient sensitivity within the standard range of 0.13-0.44 μg/mL for LOD and 0.53-1.67 μg/mL for LOQ. We proved the method's accuracy with 99.2-105.0 % of recovery analysis and demonstrated its precision with inter-day RSD (0.02-0.65 %) and intra-day RSD (0.07-0.72 %). All the regression equations show a favourable linear relationship (R² = 0.9970 - 0.9997). The fully validated method was further applied for the quantification of polyphenols in the C. myxa. The result showed that the butanol fraction of ripen fruit extract contains higher phenolics and flavonoids, followed by the chloroform fraction of unripen fruit extract; on the other hand, the hexane fraction contains the least number of polyphenols. Among the identified phenolics and flavonoids, rosmarinic acid was abundantly present in all the extracts and fractions (1.97-187.15 µg/10 mg). Therefore, it appears that this new UPLC-PDA method is a useful tool for the simultaneous determination of selected 32 polyphenols in medicinal and aromatic plants, and it may find use in industrial applications in the future.