Simultaneous Determination of Triterpenic Acids in Jujube Extract Using HPLC–UV Coupled with Multilayer Perceptron Networks

Abstract

The three triterpenic acids, betulinic acid, oleanolic acid, and ursolic acid, are some of the prominent components with medicinal characteristics in jujube fruit (Ziziphus jujuba mill.) HPLC methods can be used to determine them, but the simultaneous determination of these triterpenic acids with a similar structure is difficult. The classical HPLC method needs more time to achieve separated peaks with a satisfactory resolution, and the procedure is costly. Still, chemometric methods coupled with overlapped HPLC peaks can help to make the process faster with less cost. Here, multilayer perceptron networks were used as a chemometric method coupled with HPLC–UV data. In the MLP–HPLC–UV method, the peak area does not require measurement. Instead, spectral data of the analytes in the heavily overlapped peaks were studied. This method was tested by analyzing the synthetic mixture of triterpenic acids. The standard addition method was applied to observe the effect of interferences and recovery evaluation on the yield value of the triterpenic acids in jujube (Ziziphus jujuba mill.) extract. Consequently, prediction data are more accurate, and good recoveries of analytes were obtained. Using a simple mobile phase, shorter run time without internal standard, and complex gradient elution conditions are the superiority of this method over the classical HPLC method.