Abstract:

A method for the simultaneous determination of 11 poisonous alkaloids (aconitine, hypaconitine, mesaconitine, brucine,
strychnine, colchicine, camptothecin, atropine, scopolamine, pilocarpine, and podophyllotoxin) in Chinese medicinal herbal
beverages was developed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS). Samples were filtered through a
0.22 μm microporous membrane. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were carried out by mass spectrometry under the MRM
mode after the chromatographic separation on a Kinetex C18 (2.1 mm × 100 mm, 2.6 μm) column. All the 11 poisonous alkaloids
showed a good linearity with correlation coefficients (r) no less than 0.999 0 within their linear ranges. The limits of detection for
these poisonous alkaloids were in the range of 0.05 to 0.5 μg/kg. The mean recoveries at three spiked levels were 75.0%–88.4%
and the relative standard deviations were less than 7.6%. This method is simple, sensitive, accurate and suitable for the
simultaneous analysis of poisonous alkaloids in Chinese medicinal herbal beverages.

Key words: beverage, liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, poisonous alkaloids