Malaria threatens 300–500 million people and kills more than one million people annually. Artemisinin has been widely used as part of the artemisinin-based combination therapies against malaria. However, its supply is seriously short due to very small amounts of production of artemisinin in Artemisia annua. Molecular biologic researches aimed at increasing the artemisinin yield in plant have received more and more attention and therefore corresponding quantification methods for artemisinin analysis are urgently needed. A variety of methods for determination of artemisinin have been developed but they cannot be applied when only very little plant material is available or the material should be kept live, which often occurs in molecular biologic researches. The present work developed a simple, fast and low toxic micro-scale analysis procedure for determination of artemisinin in a single leaf or flower of living Artemisia annua using improved gas chromatography with electron-capture detection. The recovery of >95% was achieved by vortex of a piece of fresh leaf in 1 mL ethyl acetate for 2 min at room temperature. This method provides a powerful tool for biosynthesis study of artemisnin, high-throughput screening high-yield clone in an early stage, or real-time quality control of Artemisia annua crop. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley& Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: GC; ECD; determine; A. annua; chromatographic analysis; qinghaosu