Rationale

Fangchi (F.) species from four different origins have been widely used to treat or prevent diseases, and their main constitutes are several types of alkaloids. Identification of alkaloids in F. species is a necessary step to understand the therapeutic properties of each different origin, but this has not yet been fully performed.

Methods

Several types of alkaloids were extracted from F. species using ultrasonication with 70% CH3OH and the extract was partitioned at pH 2 and 12 to enrich alkaloid constituents and to remove interferences. The separation of alkaloids in the Fangchi extract was performed on a C18 column using gradient elution and their tandem mass spectra were obtained by quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (QTOF-MS/MS) to perform accurate mass measurements of fragment ions for the alkaloid constituents.

 Fangchinoline and aristolochic acid ? (purity >98%) were purchased from Chengdu Biopurify Phytochemicals Ltd (Sichuan, China).