Simultaneous determination of lycorine and galanthamine in Galanthus woronowii by hplc-dad

 
 
Key Words:
alkaloids, Amaryllidaceae, 
Galanthus
, galanthamine, lycorine 
Introduction 
Galanthus 
L. species belong to the family Amaryllidaceae and occur natu-
rally throughout much of Central and Southern Europe and in parts of 
Western Asia. Among the 
Galanthus 
species growing naturally in Turkey, 
Galanthus woronowii
Losinsk. is distributed in Northeastern Turkey and also 
outside of Turkey mainly in Caucasus, Transcaucasus, southern Russia, and 
Georgia [1]. 
Galanthus
species are known to possess Amaryllidaceae alkaloids with 
diverse structures and a wide spectrum of biological activities [2, 3]. Galan-
thamine, the most important and amply investigated alkaloid found in 
Amaryllidaceae plants, is used for the treatment of mild and moderate cases 
of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Today, total and stereoselective synthesis of 
galanthamine has been achieved and form the basis of industrial production 
of this alkaloid. However, plants are still regarded as an important source 
for the production of this alkaloid [4]. Lycorine is also a common alkaloid 
found in Amaryllidaceae species, and it has been shown to have interesting 

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A. Emir et al.
 
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biological activities such as antitumor [5], antiviral [6], and antimalarial ac-
tivities [7]. 
Due to their important biological properties, there have been a quite 
number of reports regarding the qualitative and quantitative determination 
of lycorine and galanthamine in various parts of different Amaryllidaceae 
species. A detailed literature search revealed that HPLC is the most em-
ployed method [8–12]. Also, in recent reports, gas chromatography–mass 
spectrometry (GC–MS) [13–17], high-performance thin-layer chromatogra-
phy (HPTLC) [18, 19], and proton nuclear magnetic resonance (
1
H NMR) 
[20] are other techniques used in the analysis of these alkaloids.
In the present study, aerial parts and bulbs of 
G. woronowii
, collected 
from different localities in Northeastern Turkey were quantitatively ana-
lyzed for their contents of lycorine and galanthamine by using high-
performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with a diode array 
detector (DAD). Moreover, in the context of validation procedures, the line-
arity, precision, limits of detection and quantification, accuracy, and speci-
ficity of the method were displayed.