title: Determination of quinolizidine alkaloids in traditional Chinese herbal drugs by nonaqueous capillary electrophoresis.
abstract: A rapid method for the determination of quinolizidine alkaloids by nonaqueous capillary electrophoresis was developed. A total of 10 alkaloids (matrine, sophocarpine, oxymatrine, oxysophocarpine, sophoridine, cytisine, sophoramine, aloperine, lehmannine and dauricine) could be easily separated within 18 min. A running buffer composed of 50 mM ammonium acetate, 10% tetrahydrofuran and 0.5% acetic acid in methanol was found to be the most suitable for this separation. Five of these alkaloids were selected for further studies. The linear calibration ranges were 2.51-50.1 microg/ml for sophoridine and sophocarpine, 2.71-54.2 microg/ml for matrine, 3.30-65.9 microg/ml for oxymatrine, and 3.10-62.0 microg/ml for oxysophocarpine. The recovery of the five alkaloids was 98.0-101.3% with relative standard deviations from 1.03 to 2.68% (n=5). The limits of detection for all 10 alkaloids were over the range 0.93-2.31 microg/ml. The method was successfully applied to the phytochemical analysis of alkaloid extracts from three commonly used traditional Chinese herbal drugs: Sophora flavescens Ait. (Kushen), S. alopecuroides L. (Kudouzi or Kugancao) and S. tonkinensis Gapnep (Shandougen).
authors.affiliation: Chinese Medicinal Material Research Centre and Department of Biology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: J Z
authors.initials: JZ
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: H X
authors.initials: HX
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: P P
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: But
mesh_terms: D000470:Alkaloids / Q000032:analysis*; D002138:Calibration; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal / Q000737:chemistry*; D019075:Electrophoresis, Capillary / Q000379:methods*; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional; D011807:Quinolizines / Q000737:chemistry; D012015:Reference Standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
chemical_list: D000470:Alkaloids; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal; D011807:Quinolizines