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Senecio inaequidensis a neophyte originating from South Africa that has managed to spread to Europe and colonize large areas. This plant has toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) that represent a health risk to humans and animals. The aim of this work was to measure the content of PAs of these plants in continuous intervals over the entire growing season. The plants were separated into their organs, such as sprouts, stems, leaves and inflorescences. PAs were extracted from the dried plants using an acidic methanol solution, purified and measured by GC/MS. The average PA content of plants over the growing season was 0.33% of dry weight. The highest PA levels were about 1% in the dry weight and were found in the young sprouts and flower heads. There were nine PAs present, of which six could be identified. The main alkaloid was retrorsine followed by senecivernine, senecionine, integerrimine, usaramine and seneciphylline. Due to the high PA content of the inflorescences, the long flowering period and the rapid invasion dynamics, this species presents a high health risk for humans and animals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A rapid reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic (RP-HPLC) method was established for simultaneous determination of senecionine, senlciphylline, and senecionine N-oxide in a famous traditional Chinese medicine, Gynura segetum, which has been commonly used for hemostasis. The HPLC assay was performed on a Kromasil KR100-5 C18 column (25 cm × 4.6 mm, 5 µm) with mobile phase composed of acetonitrile and 0.2% phosphoric acid-triethylamine within 40 min. The detection wavelength was 220 nm. All the compounds showed good linearity (r2 > 0.9997). The method was reproducible with intra- and interday variation less than 2.82%. The recovery of the assay was in the range of 96.55-103.88%. The method was successfully applied to the quantification of three constituents in 15 Gynura segetum samples collected from different metropolis. The results indicated that the developed assay could be considered as a suitable quality-control method for Gynura segetum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]