High performance liquid chromatography of selected alkaloids in ion-exchange systems

Profiling and quantitation of alkaloids in different parts of Sophora alopecuroides L. extracts by high-performance liquid chromatography with electrospray ionisation ion mobility spectrometry detection

INTRODUCTION

Ambient pressure electrospray ionisation ion mobility spectrometry coupled to high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to detect alkaloids from different parts of Sophora alopecuroides L. extracts. Multiplexing ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) was used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio while maintaining high resolving power for the detecting of eluents from HPLC separation.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The alkaloids profile and distribution are demonstrated by retention time-drift time two-dimensional spaces, and the contents of five major alkaloids including sophoridine, sophocarpine, cytisine, aloperine, and matrine were determined in the leaf, skin, stem, seed kernel, and seed husk using the HPLC-IMS method. This method offers extra separation ability to isomers such as matrine and sophocarpine, which can be difficult to distinguish by mass spectrometry.

RESULTS

The reduced mobilities for cytisine, sophoridine, sophocarpine, matrine, and aloperine are 0.828, 0.718, 0.731, 0.725, and 0.769 cm² /V/s, respectively. The limits of detection are 0.553, 0.488, 0.479, 0.484, and 0.513 ug/mL. This method adds extra separation ability to HPLC to resolve co-eluted peaks and provides another qualitative parameter besides HPLC retention time.

Applicability of a Monolithic Column for Separation of Isoquinoline Alkalodis from Chelidonium majus Extract

Isoquinoline alkaloids are the main group of secondary metabolites present in Chelidonium majus extracts, and they are still the object of interest of many researchers. Therefore, the development of methods for the investigation and separation of the alkaloids is still an important task. In this work, the application potential of a silica-based monolithic column for the separation of alkaloids was assessed. The influence of the organic modifier, temperature, salt concentration, and pH of the eluent on basic chromatographic parameters such as retention, resolution between neighboring peaks, chromatographic plate numbers, and peak asymmetry were investigated. Based on the obtained results, a gradient elution program was developed and used to separate and quantitatively determine the main alkaloids in a Chelidonium majus root extract.

Ion-exchange vs reversed-phase chromatography for separation and determination of basic psychotropic drugs

Ion exchange chromatography, an alternative to reversed-phase (RP) chromatography, is described in this paper. We aimed to obtain optimal conditions for the separation of basic drugs because silica-based RP stationary phases show silanol effect and make the analysis of basic analytes hardly possible. The retention, separation selectivity, symmetry of peaks and system efficiency were examined in different eluent systems containing different types of buffers at acidic pH and with the addition of organic modifiers: methanol and acetonitrile. The obtained results reveal a large influence of the salt cation used for buffer preparation and the type of organic modifier on the retention behavior of the analytes. These results were also compared with those obtained on an XBridge C18 column. The obtained results demonstrated that SCX stationary phases can be successfully used as alternatives to C18 stationary phases in the separation of basic compounds. The most selective and efficient chromatographic systems were applied for the quantification of some psychotropic drugs in fortified human serum samples.