Objective: In order to assess Berberis, a simple and effective high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method was established.
Method: By applying HPLC with gradiation elution, this method was developed for determination of four kinds of alkaloids including berbamine, Jatrorrhizine, berberine and palmatine in methanolic extracts from root bark, root, stem bark and stem of Berberis.
Result: The alkaloids berbamine, jatrorrhizine, berberine and palmatine shown good linear correlations in the range of 0.028-4.74 microg (r = 0.9998); 0.012-2.0 microg (r = 0.9996); 0.026-0.52 microg (r = 0.9999); 0.015-2.56 microg (r = 0.9998), respectively. The correlation coefficients of the calibration curve for the analytes exceeded 0.9998.
Conclusion: The optimized HPLC method was applied to analyze various samples, and the results shown that the content of alkaloids were obvious difference in Berberis from different area, different species and different parts.