Pharmaceutica Analytica Acta

Abstract

Quantitative Analysis of Nucleosides and Nucleobases in Deer Antler: Variation in Different Species

Bi D, Zhang LML, Tang RWL, Duan R, Leung KW, Dong TTX, Wang HY, Lin HQ and Tsim KWK

An HPLC-diode array detector analytical method was developed for the determination of 10 nucleosides and nucleobases, e.g. uracil, cytidine, uridine, hypoxanthine, inosine, guanine, guanosine, thymidine, adenosine and adenine, in 29 batches of deer antlers deriving from 11 species of deer: the official species of Cervi Cornu Pantotrichum recorded in Chinese Pharmacopoeia, i.e., Cervus nippon Temminck and Cervus elaphus Linnaeus, were included. This established HPLC–diode array detector method was validated to be sensitive, precise and accurate in determining the nucleosides and nucleobases of deer antlers. Quantitative analyses showed that most of deer antlers contained high amounts of nucleosides and nucleobases, except the amounts of cytidine, thymidine, adenosine and adenine; however, which varied greatly in different species and different regions of collection. The similarity of chemical fingerprints was determined, and the antlers from C. nippon and C. elaphus showed the highest similarity, suggesting the possible application in authentication. However, the species discrimination of deer antler could not be fully revealed by hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and/or principal component analysis (PCA).