Purification of alkaloids from Corydalis yanhusuo W. T. Wang using preparative 2-D HPLC.

Two-dimensional preparative multi-channel parallel high performance liquid chromatography was successfully applied for the first time to isolate and purify alkaloids from Corydalis yanhusuo. The experiments were performed in off-line mode using the same preparative chromatographic column with pH 3.5 in the first and pH 10.0 in the second separation dimension. In the preparative process, UV-triggered fraction collection was used in the first dimension while UV and MS-triggered collection were used in the second dimension for reasons of sensitivity and complementarity. Two pure compounds and nine fractions were obtained in the first dimension. Then two representative fractions were further purified in the second dimension and six pure compounds were obtained. The results demonstrated that this procedure is an effective approach for the preparative isolation and purification of alkaloids from Corydalis yanhusuo. Based on the different pH values of the mobile phase in this method, it is also suitable for the preparative isolation and purification of other compounds from TCMs which are sensitive to the pH of the solutions. Moreover, this method will be a promising tool for the purification of low content compounds from natural products.