Rapid and systematic identification of indole alkaloids in Uncariarhynchophylla by UPLC-Q-TOF-MS

Abstract

Uncaria rhynchophylla (UR), a well-knowntraditional Chinese medicine (TCM), is widely used to treat clinical cardiovascular diseases. Recently, some researches have been reported for pharmacology and photochemistry of UR. However, there are no reports on qualitative analysis previously. We used MDF function module of Agilent qualitative software and characteristic diagnostic fragmentation ions (CDFI) to identify Uncaria alkaloids. A total of thirty-two compounds were identified. Among them, twelve ingredients had never been reported in a qualitative way, including three ajmalicine-type (16,20,21), four yohimbine-type (4,5,15,27), 5α-carboxystrictosidine (6), gambireine (10), glabratine (12), villocarines D (17) and geissoschizine methyl ether (23).A rapid method integrated MDF and diagnostic ions is successfully established and applied to identify the alkaloids in UR.