Quantitative determination of bioactive alkaloids lysergol and chanoclavine in Ipomoea muricata by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography

A rapid, simple, sensitive, gradient and reproducible, reverse‐phase high‐performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the quantitative estimation of bioactive alkaloids, lysergol and chanoclavine in the seeds of Ipomoea muricata. The clavine alkaloid, lysergol, is a bioenhancer for the drugs and nutrients. The samples were analyzed by reverse‐phase chromatography on a Waters spherisorb ODS2 column (250 × 4.6 mm, i.d., 10 µm) using binary gradient elution with acetonitrile and 0.01 m phosphate buffer (NaH₂PO₄) containing 0.1% glacial acetic acid at a flow rate of 0.8 mL/min, a column temperature of 25 °C and UV detection at λ 254 nm. The limits of detection (LOD) and quantitation (LOQ) were 0.035 and 0.106 µg/mL for lysergol and 0.039 and 0.118 µg/mL for chanoclavine, respectively. Standard curves were linear in the range of 2–10 µg/mL (r > 99) for both analytes. Good results were achieved with respect to repeatability (RSD < 2%) and recovery (99.20–102.0). The method was validated for linearity, accuracy repeatability, LOQ and LOD. The method is simple, accurate and precise, and may be recommended for routine quality control analysis of I. muricata seed extracts containing these two clavine alkaloids (1, 2) as bioactive principles of the herb. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.