Lumi-ergometrine--structural identification and occurrence in sclerotia

The fungus Claviceps purpurea grows on grasses and cereal grains and produces six predominant ergot alkaloids. These toxic substances undergo different transformation reactions during storage and cereal processing. One of these reactions is the addition of water to a double bond in the ergoline skeleton. Since light is required for this process, the substances formed were named lumi-ergot alkaloids. From these, a new asymmetric carbon and consequently two epimers with different polarities are formed. For investigations of lumi-ergot alkaloids, ergometrine was used exemplarily as it represents one of the six ergot alkaloids predominantly formed by Claviceps purpurea. The main reaction product, the less polar compound of the two lumi-ergometrine epimers, was separated by HPLC and unambiguously identified as 10-(S)-lumi-ergometrine using X-ray structural analysis. A HPLC-MS/MS method was developed for the detection of this substance in sclerotia extracts. Using this method, the existence of both epimeric forms of lumi-ergometrine could be proved in the sclerotia. This is the first time that the existence of a lumi-transformation product of ergot alkaloids was proved in naturally grown samples.