Content determination of 3 alkaloids in different origins of Tibetan Corydalis pallida by UPLC-MS/MS / 中国药房

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE To establish and apply a method for simultaneous determination of the contents of dicentrine， protopine and coptisine in Tibetan Corydalis pallida of different origins， and to provide reference for origin determination and quality control of the kind of medicinal materials. METHODS Ultra performance liquid chromatography-tandem quadrupole mass spectrometry method was used. The determination was performed on Agilent EC-C18 column （100 mm×2.1 mm， 2.7 μm） with mobile phase consisted of acetonitrile-0.1% formic acid by gradient elution. The flow rate was 0.2 mL/min， and the column temperature was set at 35 ℃ . MS detection was carried out by electrospray ionization in positive modes， multiple reaction monitoring mode was used for quantitative analysis. RESULTS The injection mass concentrations of dicentrine， protopine， coptisine ranged from 5.88 to 117.60， 53.70 to 1 074.00， and 4.85 to 97.00 ng/mL， respectively， showing a good linear relationship with their respective peak areas （r＝0.998 2， 0.991 9， and 0.999 6， respectively）. The limits of quantitation were 2.35， 1.07 and 1.46 ng/mL； the limits of detection were 1.17， 0.54， 0.49 ng/mL， respectively. RSDs of precision， stability （24 h） and repeatability tests were all lower than 2.0％. The average recovery rates were 97.41%， 98.89% and 105.44%（ all RSDs＜5.0％， n＝6）. CONCLUSIONS The established method has good selectivity and high accuracy， and is suitable for the rapid analysis of dicentrine， protopine and coptisine in Corydalis. The total contents of three alkaloids in different original medicinal materials are from high to low in order of C. chrysosphaera， C. mucronifera， C. pygmaea， C. hendersonii and C. conspersa. The alkaloid contents in C. chrysosphaera and C. mucronifera are relatively similar， but no dicentrine has been detected in C. conspersa and C. hendersonii.