Separation and purification of puerarin using β-cyclodextrin-coupled agarose gel media

The isoflavonoid puerarin, a well-known traditional Chinese drug, has been purified in one step from an extract of Radix puerariae (root of the plant Pueraria lobata) by adsorption chromatography on an epichlorohydrin polymerized β-cyclodextrin ligand coupled to brominated allyl-group substituted Sepharose HP. Acetic acid (10%) was used as the mobile phase and the optimum loading capacity was around 1.2 mg crude extract/ml packed gel. The purity of the collected puerarin was about 98% with a recovery of about 62%.