OBJECTIVE

2

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

2

Ultra performance liquid chromatography-tandem quadrupole mass spectrometry method was used. The determination was performed on Agilent EC-C

18

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

2

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

2

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

.