Spectrophotometric determination of methyldopa and dopamine in pharmaceutical formulations using a crude extract of sweet potato root (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.) as enzymatic source.

A rapid, precise and low cost spectrophotometric method is proposed for the determination of methyldopa and dopamine in pharmaceutical formulations. The crude extract of sweet potato root (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.) was used as an enzymatic source of polyphenol oxidase (PPO; EC.1.14.18.1). This enzyme catalyses the oxidation of catecholamines to the corresponding methyldopaquinone and dopaminequinone. Those compounds are converted by a rapid spontaneous auto-oxidation to methyldopachrome and dopaminechrome which have a strong absorption at 480 or 470 nm, respectively. The calibration graphs are linear from 2.0x10(-4) to 6.0x10(-3) M. The results obtained by the proposed enzymatic method are in close agreement with those obtained using a Pharmacopoeia procedure and also with the label values. The detection limit (three times the signal blank/slope) was 3.4x10(-5) and 3.0x10(-5) M for methyldopa and dopamine, respectively, the recovery of methyldopa and dopamine from three samples ranged from 97.5 to 102.9% of the added amount.