Quantitative determination of vasicine and vasicinone in Adhatoda vasica by high performance capillary electrophoresis.

A new method of capillary electrophoresis was developed for the quantitative determination of vasicine and vasicinone from Adhatoda vasica (L.) Nees. The electrophoretic separation was performed using a 47 cm x 50 microm ID (38.5 cm effective length) fused silica capillary. The samples were injected by pressure for 3 s at 50 mbar and the running voltage was 19 kV at the injector end of the capillary. The capillary temperature was maintained at 40 degrees C. The separation of the two alkaloids has been achieved within 11 min with good repeatability. The method was validated in terms of reproducibility, linearity, accuracy and applied for the quantitative determination of vasicine and vasicinone in A. vasica plant samples/extracts. Parameters affecting the resolution such as pH, temperature, organic modifier, buffer concentration and capillary dimensions were reported.