Importance of phytosterols and their determination in herbal medicines

A simple, high-throughput reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry method was developed for the quantification of sterols in plant extracts. The optimum conditions were as follows: a mobile phase consisting of a mixture of methanol/acetonitrile (30/70, v/v) with a flow rate of 1 ml/min, tandem mass spectrometry detection with an atmospheric pressure chemical ionization interface, operated in positive mode. Calibration curves with good correlation coefficients were generated for β-sitosterol, stigmasterol, campesterol and ergosterol in the range of 0.08-8 μg/ml. The developed method has been successfully applied to the analysis and comparison of phytosterols content from wild Romanian species of Artemisia absinthium L., Artemisia annua L. and Artemisia vulgaris L.