chanoclavine and lysergol

Nowadays psychoactive plants marketed as "legal highs" or "herbal highs" increase in popularity. One popular "legal high" are the seeds of the Hawaiian baby woodrose Argyreia nervosa (Synonym: Argyreia speciosa, Convolvolus speciosus). At present there exists no study on A. nervosa seeds or products, which are used by consumers. The quality of commercial available A. nervosa seeds or products is completely unknown. In the present study, a commercial available seed collection (five seeds labeled "flash of inspiration", FOI) was analyzed for ergot alkaloids together with an A. nervosa product (two preparations in capsule form, "druids fantasy", DF). For this purpose high performance liquid chromatography high resolution tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-HRMS/MS) technique was employed. Besides the major ingredients such as lysergic acid amide (LSA) and ergometrine the well known A. nervosa compounds lysergol/elymoclavine/setoclavine, chanoclavine and the respective stereoisomers were detected in DF, while only LSA and ergometrine could be found in FOI. In addition, in DF lysergic acid was found, which has not been reported yet as ingredient of A. nervosa. In both products, DF as well as in FOI, LSA/LSA-isomers were dominant with 83-84% followed by ergometrine/ergometrinine with 10-17%. Therefore, LSA, followed by ergometrine/ergometrinine, could be confirmed to be the main ergot alkaloids present in A. nervosa seeds/products whereas the other ergot alkaloids seemed to be of minor importance (less than 6.1% in DF). The total ergot alkaloid amounts varied considerably between DF and FOI by a factor of 8.6 as well as the LSA concentration ranging from 3 μg (lowest amount in one FOI seed) to approximately 34 μg (highest amount in one DF capsule). Among the FOI seeds, the LSA concentration varied from approximately 3-15 μg per seed. Thus, the quality/potency of seeds/preparations depends on the amount of ergot alkaloids and the intensity of an expected trip is totally unpredictable.

Topics: Alkaloids; Chromatography, Liquid; Convolvulus; Ergolines; Ergonovine; Humans; Indoles; Lysergic Acid Diethylamide; Molecular Structure; Psychotropic Drugs; Seeds; Tandem Mass Spectrometry

A rapid, simple, sensitive, gradient and reproducible, reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the quantitative estimation of bioactive alkaloids, lysergol and chanoclavine in the seeds of Ipomoea muricata. The clavine alkaloid, lysergol, is a bioenhancer for the drugs and nutrients. The samples were analyzed by reverse-phase chromatography on a Waters spherisorb ODS2 column (250 × 4.6 mm, i.d., 10 µm) using binary gradient elution with acetonitrile and 0.01 m phosphate buffer (NaH₂PO₄) containing 0.1% glacial acetic acid at a flow rate of 0.8 mL/min, a column temperature of 25 °C and UV detection at λ 254 nm. The limits of detection (LOD) and quantitation (LOQ) were 0.035 and 0.106 µg/mL for lysergol and 0.039 and 0.118 µg/mL for chanoclavine, respectively. Standard curves were linear in the range of 2-10 µg/mL (r > 99) for both analytes. Good results were achieved with respect to repeatability (RSD < 2%) and recovery (99.20-102.0). The method was validated for linearity, accuracy repeatability, LOQ and LOD. The method is simple, accurate and precise, and may be recommended for routine quality control analysis of I. muricata seed extracts containing these two clavine alkaloids (1, 2) as bioactive principles of the herb.

Topics: Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; Chromatography, Reverse-Phase; Ergolines; Ipomoea; Least-Squares Analysis; Reproducibility of Results; Seeds; Sensitivity and Specificity