Determination of cis-abienol in tobacco with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography

In order to accurately determine the content of cis-abienol in tobacco samples, an ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet (UPLC-UV) method was established by optimizing the extraction method and liquid chromatography conditions. The established method was used to determine the cis-abienol in 15 samples of flue-cured tobacco cv. Dabaijin599 with special flavor type before and after curing. The results showed that:1) The linear relationship of the curve was good (r²=0.999 9) in the range of 1.60-80.00 μg/mL of cis-abienol. 2) The spiked recoveries of samples were from 97.63% to 109.80%, the relative standard deviations (RSDs) ranged from 2.05% to 3.69%, the limit of detection was 4.00 μg/g and the limit of quantitation was 13.30 μg/g with the reproducibility RSD of 3.43%. 3) During the process of tobacco curing, cis-abienol in tobacco mostly degraded at a rate of 27.92%-89.23%, averaged at 63.66%. This method features a simple sample pretreatment, good separation, a high precision and accuracy, and thus suitable for the detection of cis-abienol in tobacco.