Quantitative determination of anti-fungal and insecticide amides in adult plants, plantlets and callus from Piper tuberculatum by reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography

A rapid, sensitive and reliable reverse‐phase HPLC method was used for the quantitative determination of the anti‐fungal and insecticide amides, dihydropiplartine (1), piplartine (2), Δα,β‐dihydropiperine (3) and pellitorine (4) in plants in natura, in plantlets in vitro and ex vitro, and in callus of Piper tuberculatum. Well‐resolved peaks were obtained with good detection response and linearity in the range of 15.0–3000 µg/mL. The plants in natura contained compounds 1–4, the plantlets ex vitro and in vitro accumulated compounds 1–2 and 1–4, respectively, while only amide 4 was found in callus. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.