Simultaneous determination of 16 alkaloids in blood by ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry coupled with supported liquid extraction

Abstract

Alkaloids are widely present in food and medicine. However, many alkaloids have poisoning effect. Thus, a sensitive and rapid method for determination of alkaloids is highly desired. In this study, a convenient, reliable and accurate method is developed for the simultaneous determination of 16 poisonous alkaloids in human blood by ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) coupled with supported liquid extraction (SLE). The 16 alkaloids include colchicine, anisodamine, scopolamine, atropine, sinomenine, dicaine, thebaine, papaverine, strychnine, brucine, aconitine, hypaconitine, yunaconitine, deoxyaconitine, bullatine A and bullatine B. Low limits of detection (LODs) were obtained ranging in 0.002-0.03 μg L^-1. The linear ranges are 0.005-200 μg L^-1 for colchicine, papaverine, brucine, aconitine, hypaconitine, yunaconitine and deoxyaconitine, 0.01-200 μg L^-1 for anisodamine and scopolamine, 0.05-200 μg L^-1 for atropine, strychnine, bullatine A and bullatine B, 0. 1-200 μg L^-1 for other target analytes, all with correlation coefficients (R²) higher than 0.995. The recoveries range from 79.2% to 95.8%. The relative standard deviation (RSD) values are lower than 15% and the values of matrix effect (ME) range in 86.3%-118.2%. This method of UPLC-MS/MS coupled with SLE has high potential for analyzing multiple alkaloids in blood samples.

Keywords: Alkaloids; Supported liquid extraction; Tandem mass spectrometry; Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography.