A high performance liquid chromatographic method was applied to the determination of caffeic and chlorogenic acids in the leaves and fruits of Vitex agnus-castus collected from three different region of Turkey. Caffeic and chlorogenic acids were known to be potent antioxidants and the two phenolic acids were investigated in Turkish Vitex agnus-castus samples for the first time. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of six extracts of the plant were performed by RP-HPLC method. The linear range of detection for caffeic and chlorogenic acids were between 1.02-400 (r2 0.9999) and 1.08-476 (r2 0.9948) ug/mL, respectively. Marmaris and Antalya leaf samples display the highest content of caffeic acid as 0.277%(w/w) and 0.266%(w/w) while Marmaris fruit and Isparta fruit samples were rich in chlorogenic acid as 0.343%(w/w) and 0.303%(w/w), respectively.
Keywords: Vitex agnus-castus, phenolic acids, RP-HPLC