Quality Consistency Monitoring of Alkaloids of Sophora flavescens by Tandem High-Performance Liquid Chromatography...

The drug "alkaloids of Sophora flavescens" (ASF) is an extract from the dried root of S. flavescens Ai. It has various pharmacological effects including anti-arrhythmia, anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic, anti-hepatitis, and antimicrobial. As there are many alkaloids with similar structure and properties, the constituent complexity brings a huge challenge in the quality control of ASF.

To develop new tandem high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) fingerprinting methods for the quality control of alkaloids of S. flavescens.

ASF samples were tested based on hydrophilic chromatography and ion suppression chromatographic separation mechanisms, separately. Then, the fingerprints of the two separation mechanisms were established and processed by the computer-aided tandem signal method and tandem data method, respectively. The linear quantitative profiling method was used for both qualitative and quantitative evaluation.

The results of the tandem signal method and the tandem data method were accurate and consistent. The tandem signal fingerprint can reveal the inherent characteristics of traditional medicinal materials, and it is better than single fingerprints in terms of signal intensity, separation degree, homogeneity, and information abundance. The tandem data method can rapidly realize the comprehensive quality evaluation of the HPLC fingerprints under different separation mechanisms.

These tandem methods overcome experimental compatibility problems and the limitation of the low information content of the single separation mechanism fingerprints and can reveal the distribution and characteristics of the complex chemical components of traditional medicinal materials in a novel, realistic, and holistic way.