One Step to Separate Five Alkaloids from Hypecoum leptocarpum by High-Speed Counter-Current Chromatography

High-speed counter-current chromatography (CCC) was firstly and successfully applied for the preparative separation and purification of alkaloids from crude extract of Hypecoum leptocarpum. After the measurement of partition coefficient of five target alkaloids in the two-phase solvent systems, the CCC was performed well with a two-phase solvent system composed of tetrachloromethane-chloroform-methanol-0.1 M HCl at a volume ratio of 1.5 : 2.5 : 3 : 2 (V/V/V/V). The upper phase was used as the stationary phase, and the lower phase was used as the mobile phase. From 120 mg crude extract, 5 mg leptopidine, 32 mg oxohydrastinine, 27 mg (-)-N-methylanadine, 7 mg N-feruloyltyramine and 3 mg hypecoleptopine could be successfully separated. The amides alkaloid, N-feruloyltyramine, was firstly separated from H. leptocarpum. High-performance liquid chromatography analysis showed that the purity of each of the five target alkaloids was over 92%. Their chemical structures were confirmed by (1)H-NMR and (13)C-NMR data.