Quantification of taxanes in a leaf and twig extract from Taxus baccata L. using 13 C NMR spectroscopy

In the course of our ongoing work on the chemical characterization of Taxus baccata L. growing wild in Corsica, we have developed and validated a method for direct quantification of taxane derivatives by 13 C NMR using 10‐deacetylbaccatin III as reference compound and 1,6‐hexanediol as internal standard. We have observed good accuracy (relative errors between 0.3% and 3.5%), linearity ( R 2  = 0.999) and precision (reproducibility 8.5 mg ± 1.1%) of the measurements. The experimental procedure was applied to the quantification of six identified taxanes in a fraction of chromatography of a methanol extract of T .  baccata leaves. This method can be applied to other compounds bearing the taxane skeleton. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.