High Performance Liquid Chromatographic Separation of Taxol from Taxus Yunnanensis Extract

A reverse phase high performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of taxol in ethanol extract of the bark of Taxus yunnanensis Cheng et L. K. Fuis described. In comparison with the Shim-pack CLC-ODS column, a 5μm Shim-pack CLC-CN column(6.0 mm i. d.x150 mm) was more suitable for the separation of taxol from the extract. The eluant was consisted of methanol, acetonitrile and water in 20:16:64 volume ratio. The flow rate was 2.0 mL/min and the column oven tempamture was controlled at 40℃. The effluent was monitored at 227 nm. The described method is simple and accuate and has the potential for direct quantitation of minor taxol in crude ethanolic taxol extracts.