Quantitative Analysis of Tertiary and Quaternary Alkaloids in Corydalis Tuber by Ion-Pair High-Performance Liquid Chromatography and Its Application to an Oriental Pharmaceutical Preparation

A new, simple and precise method using ion-pair high-performance liquid chromatography was developed for the determination of alkaloids in Corydalis Tuber and Anchusan-to dry extract, i.e., tetrahydrocolumbamine, glaucine, tetrahydropalmatine, corydaline, columbamine, coptisine, palmatine, berberine and dehydrocorydaline. Reversed-phase systems with an octadecylsilane chemically bonded silica gel column using a mixture of sodium dodecyl sulfate, 0.05M tartaric acid and acetonitrile (0.5 : 62 : 38) and a mixture of sodium dodecyl sulfate, Britton-Robinson buffer (pH 3.0) and acetonitrile (0.5 : 56 : 34) as the mobile phases were suitable for the separation of tertiary alkaloids and quaternary alkaloids, respectively, in Corydalis Tuber.