Simultaneous determination of berberine, matrine and oxymatrine in traditional Chinese medicines by using nonaqueous capillary electrophoresis / 药物分析学报

ABSTRACT

A rapid method for the simultaneous determination of berberine (BBR), matrine (MT) and oxymatrine (OMT) by nonaqueous capillary electrophoresis (NACE) was developed. Optimum separation of the analytes was obtained on a 50cm×50μm i.d. fused-silica capillary using a non-aqueous buffer system of 70mM ammonium acetate, 7.0% acetic acid and 10% acetonitrile at 25kV and 20℃. The relative standard deviations (R.S.D.) of the migration times and peak areas of the three active components were 0.06%-0.20% and 0.12%-3.41% for berberine, 0.11%-0.60% and 0.74%-1.63% for matrine, 0.15% and 0.45% for oxymatrine, respectively. Detection limits of berberine, matrine and oxymtrine were 0.18μg/mL, 4.08μg/mL and 4.16μg/mL, respectively. In the tested concentration range, good linear relationships (0.9992 for berberine, 0.9988 for matrine and 0.9988 for oxymatrine) were observed. The linear calibration ranges were 0.45-360.0μg/mL for berberine, 8.16-408.0μg/mL for matrine and 20.8-416.0μg/mL for oxymatrine. This method has been successfully applied to the phytochemical analysis of alkaloids extracts from two commonly used traditional Chinese herbal drugs Sophora flavescens Ait. (Kushen) and Cortex phellodendri chinensis (Huangbai) and their medicinal preparations.