Abstract
A high performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of the quinazoline alkaloids vasicine (1) and vasicinone (2) in Adhatoda vasica plant extract is reported. Peak purity and similarity of 1 and 2 have been studied using photodiode array detector (PDA). Effects of different solvents have been studied for the extraction of 1 and 2 in A. vasica plant, and methanol was found to give the maximum extraction of compounds 1 and 2. The method is simple, sensitive, rapid, and reproducible for the quantitation of pharmacologically important alkaloids vasicine and vasicinone. The separation of 1 and 2 was performed with acetonitrile–phosphate buffer (pH maintained to 3.9 using glacial acetic acid) (15:85) using a Hibar Merck make C18 column.