Quantitative Determination of Nitidine from Roots and Plant Tissue Culture Extracts of <i>Toddalia asiatica</i>(Linn.) Using HPTLC

Toddalia asiatica Linn. is an important medicinal plant belonging to the family Rutaceae. The plant is well known for its antimalarial activity, which has been attributed to the presence of benzophenanthridine alkaloid nitidine in the roots of plants. A simple, rapid, sensitive, accurate, repeatable and robust HPTLC method has been developed and validated for the quantitative determination of nitidine in the dried roots and plant tissue culture extracts of T. asiatica. Nitidine was estimated at 332 nm by densitometry using Silica gel 60 F254 as stationary phase and chloroform:methanol (7:1, v/v), and as mobile phase. Linearity was observed in the concentration range of 25 -200 ng/spot for nitidine. The limit of detection and limit of quantitation were found to be 0.026 and 0.086 ng/spot respectively for nitidine. Developed method was validated according to the ICH guidelines with respect to precision, accuracy, specificity and robustness. The technique has been applied for the first time for the estimation of nitidine in roots and plant tissue culture extracts of T. asiatica. Statistical analysis data indicate the accuracy and reliability of the method.

Simultaneous Quantitative Determination of Nitidine, Chelerythrine and Sanguinarine Using HPTLC from Callus Extract of <i>Zanthoxylum rhetsa</i>

Nitidine, Chelerythrine and Sanguinarine, all these three alkaloids are benzophenanthridine alkaloids. Nitidine was used as an anti-HIV, anti-malarial and anti-cancer. Chelerythrine had anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory activities. Sanguinarine was widely used as an anti-plaquestic and anti-cancer. High performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) method was used for simultaneous quantification of Nitidine, Chelerythrine and Sanguinarine in callus extract of Zanthoxylum rhetsa by using Silica gel 60 F254 as stationary phase and ethyl acetate:methanol:water:diethylamine (30:5:2:0.5 v/v) as mobile phase at 280 nm. The linearity concentration range was 5 - 160 μg/band of each alkaloid. The Rf values of Nitidine, Chelerythrine and Sanguinarine were found to be 0.28, 0.49 and 0.73. The limit of detection and limit of quantification were found to be 0.026, 0.088 μg/spot and 0.010 and 0.033 μg/spot, 0.0104 and 0.035 μg/spot respectively for Nitidine, Chelerythrine and Sanguinarine. HPTLC method was developed and validated according to ICH guidelines for simultaneous estimation of Nitidine, Chelerythrine and Sanguinarine and proved to be simple, specific, accurate, robust and rapid.

Determination and Pharmacokinetic Study of Nitidine Chloride in Rat Plasma after Intragastrical Administration by LC-ESI-MS/MS Method

Objective To study the pharmacokinetics of nitidine chloride（NC） in rat plasma after intragastrical（i.g.） administration. Methods A liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-mass/mass sprectrometry（LC-ESI-MS/MS） was used and carbamazepine was used as an intermal standard（I.S.）. The rat plasma samples were deproteinized with acetonitrile and the resultant supernatant was assayed on an analytical Diamonsil ^（TM）ODS C_（18） column（2.1 mm × 150 mm） equipped with a C_（18） guard column（4 mm × 20 mm） with a mobile phase of acetonitrile–10 mM ammonium acetate buffer–formic acid（35： 65： 0.2, v/v/v） at the flow rate of 0.25 mL/min. The LC–MS was carried out on a triple-quadrupole mass spectrometry equipped with an ESI and positive selected-ion monitoring. Target ions were monitored at [M-Cl]~＋ m/z 348.2 for NC and [M ＋ H]~＋ m/z237.2 for I.S., respectively. Results The simple one step deproteinize and rapid analysis method were successfully used in pharmacokinetic study on NC after i.g. administration. The linear relationship was good over the range of 2.5 – 1000.0 ng/ml（r^2 = 0.999 2） in rat plasma. The lower limit of quantification and detection were 2.5 and 1.6 ng/ml, respectively. The extraction recovery was in the range of 86.54 – 98.60%. The intra-and inter-day precisions（relative standard deviation） were less than 6.00%, with accuracies deviation between 89.40 to 95.57%. A two-compartment pharmacokinetic open model was proposed and validated to explain the apparent biphasic disposition of NC in rat plasma after i.g. administration. Conclusion This study was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study of NC in rats plasma following i.g. administration and could be used for preclinical and clinical pharmacokinetic evaluation of NC.