Simultaneous determination of secondary metabolites from Vinca rosea plant extractives by reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography

Background: Vinca rosea (Apocynaceae) is one of the most important and high value medicinal plants known for its anticancer alkaloids. It is the iota of the isolated secondary metabolites used in chemotherapy to treat diverse cancers. Several high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) methods have been developed to quantify the active alkaloids in the plant. However, this method may serve the purpose in quantification of V. rosea plant extracts in totality. Objective: To develop and validate the reverse phase (RP)-HPLC method for simultaneous determination of secondary metabolites, namely alkaloids from V. rosea plant extracts. Materials and Methods: The quantitative determination was conducted by RP-HPLC equipped with ultraviolet detector. Optimal separation was achieved by isocratic elution with mobile phase consisting of methanol:acetonitrile:ammonium acetate buffer (25 mM) with 0.1% triethylamine (15:45:40 v/v) on a column (Zorbax Eclipse plus C18, 250 mm × 4.6 mm; 5 μm). The standard markers (vindoline, vincristine, catharanthine, and vinblastine) were identified by retention time and co-injected with reference standard and quantified by external standard method at 297 nm. Results: The precision of the method was confirmed by the relative standard deviation (R.S.D.), which was lower than 2.68%. The recoveries were in the range of 98.09%–108%. The limits of detection (LOD) for each marker alkaloids were lower than 0.20 μg. Different parts of the V. rosea extracts shows different concentrations of markers, flower samples were high in vinblastine content, while methanol extract from the leaves contains all the four alkaloids in good yield, and there is no significant presence of markers in water extracts. Conclusion: HPLC method established is appropriate for the standardization and quality assurance of V. rosea plant extracts.