Determination of bioactive isoquinoline alkaloids in Thalictrum reniforme Wallich and Thalictrum neurocarpum Royale using ultra performance liquid chromatography with hybrid triple quadrupole linear ion trap mass spectrometer

Thalictrum is a well recognised genus of medicinal plants. It is widely distributed in temperate and tropical habitats of India. Alkaloid isomers from Thalictrum are reported to exhibit various pharmacological activities like antiamebic, antimicrobial, antitumour and antiviral. Thalictrum reniforme Wallich and Thalictrum neurocarpum Royale are very less studied species of the genera. In present study, we have discussed about simultaneous quantification of seven bioactive alkaloids in aerial parts of T. reniforme and T. neurocarpum using ultra performance liquid chromatography attached with hybrid triple quadrupole linear ion trap mass spectrometer (UPLC-QqQLIT-MS) operated in the multiple reactions monitoring (MRM) acquisition. The chromatographic separation of all the standards were carried out by using ACQUITY UPLC CSHTM C18 column using a gradient programming at a flow rate of 0.3 mL/min. Method was validated by determining the precision and recovery values of the samples in terms of relative standard deviations (RSDs) which was found 0.40-3.1% and 0.59-3.17% (98-101%), respectively. Calibration curves for all the seven analytes was determined as optimum linear detector response having R2 0.9988 over the concentration range of 0.5-1000 ng/mL. The validated method was then used to quantify the isoquinoline alkaloids which revealed that T. reniforme had high level of total content as compared to T. neurocarpum. The quantity of analyte was subjected to principal component analysis.