Determination of Betaine in Fructus Lycii Using Hydrophilic Interaction Liquid Chromatography with Evaporative Light Scattering Detection

A simple new method was developed for the determination of betaine in Fructus Lycii using hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography with evaporative light scattering detection (HILIC-ELSD). Good chromatographic separation and reasonable betaine retention was achieved on a Kinetex HILIC column (2.1 x 100 mm, 2.6 mu m) packed with fused-core particle. The mobile phase consisted of (A) acetonitrile and (B) 10 mM ammonium formate (pH 3.0)/acetonitrile (90/10, v/v). It was used with gradient elution at a flow rate of 0.7 mL/min. The column temperature was set at 27.5 degrees C and the injection volume was 10 mu L. The ELSD drift tube temperature was 50 degrees C and the nebulizing gas (nitrogen) pressure was 3.0 bar. Stachydrine, a zwitterionic compound, was used as an internal standard. Calibration curve over 10-250 mu g/mL showed good linearity (R-2 > 0.9992) and betaine in the 70% methanol extract of Fructus Lycii was well separated from other peaks. Intra- and inter-day precision ranged from 1.1 to 3.0% and from 2.4 to 5.3%, respectively, while intra- and inter-day accuracy ranged from 100.0 to 107.0% and from 94.3 to 103.9%, respectively. The limit of quantification (LOQ) was 10 mu g/mL and the recoveries were in the range of 98.2-102.7%. The developed HILIC-ELSD method was successfully applied to quantitatively determine the amount of betaine in fourteen Fructus Lycii samples from different locations, demonstrating that this method is simple, rapid, and suitable for the quality control of Fructus Lycii.