Quantitative determination of diterpenoid alkaloids in four species of Aconitum by HPLC

A high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method has been developed for the determination of five principal alkaloids (benzoylmesaconine, mesaconitine, aconitine, hypaconitine and deoxyaconitine) found in four species of genus Aconitum. The five alkaloids were analyzed simultaneously with an XTerraRP18 column by gradient elution using 0.03 M ammonium hydrogen carbonate-acetonitrile as mobile phase. The recovery of the method was 94.6-101.9%, and all the alkaloids showed good linearity (gamma = 0.9999) in a relatively wide concentration range. The results indicated that contents of alkaloids in Aconitum varied significantly from species to species; hence quality control of Aconitum drugs is very necessary.