Saffron is widely cultivated and used as a spice. Recently published data on the chemical composition and pharmacological potential of saffron determine its use in pharmacy and medicine. The proposed high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) method allows good separation of 11 analytes. The saffron quality (Iran, Ukraine, Spain, Morocco samples) assessment was based on the European Pharmacopoeia monograph and ISO 3632. The HPTLC method for the safranal, crocin, and picrocrocin quantification was proposed and validated. The crocins content in Ukrainian saffron was from 17.80% to 33.25%. Based on qualitative and quantitative assessment results, the saffron sample from Zaporizhzhia (Ukraine) had the highest compounds content and was chosen to obtain the working standards of picrocrocin and crocins (trans-4GG, trans-2G, trans-3Gg) by preparative chromatography. The compounds were isolated from lyophilized extract of saffron using a Symmetry Prep C18 column (300 × 19 mm × 7 µm), and identified by spectroscopic techniques (HPLC-DAD, UPLC-ESI-MS/MS). The purity of crocins and picrocrocin was more than 97%. A novel method proposed to obtain working standards is simple and reproducible for the routine analysis of saffron quality control.
Keywords: HPTLC; UPLC-ESI-MS/MS; crocins; picrocrocin; preparative chromatography; quality control; saffron.