Identification and determination of the major constituents in traditional Chinese medicine Longdan Xiegan Pill by HPLC-DAD-ESI-MS

A novel and sensitive HPLC-UV method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of twelve major compounds in Longdan Xiegan Pill.The chemical profile of the twelve compounds,including geniposidic acid（1）,geniposide（2）,gentiopicroside（3）,liquiritin（4）,crocin（5）,baicalin（6）,wogonoside（7）,baicalein（8）,glycyrrhizic acid（9）,wogonin（10）,oroxylin A（11）and aristolochic acid A（12）,was acquired using high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector coupled with an electrospray tandem mass spectrometer（HPLC-DAD-ESI-MS）.The analysis was performed on a Dikma Platisil ODS C18 column（250 mm×4.6 mm,5 μm）with a gradient solvent system of acetonitrile-0.1% aqueous formic acid.The validation was carried out and the linearities（r〉0.9996）,repeatability（RSD〈1.8%）,intra-and inter-day precision（RSD〈1.3%）,and recoveries（ranging from 96.6% to 103.4%）were acceptable.The limits of detection（LOD）of these compounds ranged from 0.29 to 4.17 ng.Aristolochic acid A,which is the toxic ingredient,was not detected in all the batches of Longdan Xiegan Pill.Furthermore,hierarchical cluster analysis was used to evaluate the variation of the herbal prescription.The proposed method is simple,effective and suitable for the quality control of this traditional Chinese medicine（TCM）.

Simultaneous quantification of eighteen constituents in traditional Chinese medicine XiaoShuanTongLuo by UPLCMS/ MS

XiaoShuanTongLuo （XSTL） is an important multi-herbal formula widely used as a traditional Chinese medicine （TCM）. In this paper, an ultra-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometric method （UPLC-ESI-MS/MS） was developed for the simultaneous identification and quantification of 18 chemical constituents in the extract of XSTL. The analysis was performed in multiple-reaction monitoring （MRM） mode using positive and negative electrospray ionization （ESI）. A BEH C18 （2.1 mm× 100 mm, 1.7 μm） column with a gradient mobile phase of methanol-0.1% aqueous formic acid solution at a flow rate of 0.2 mL/min was used for separation. The standard curves of most components showed good linearity over the concentration range of 0.001-0.5 μg/mL with r = 0.9896-0.9996. The relative standard deviations （RSD） of intra-day and inter-day precision were all lower than 15% at low, middle, and high concentration levels. The RSD of stability analysis in 24 h were also lower than 15%. The validated method was employed to quantify 18 active components simultaneously in four different commercial brands of XSTL products in various dosage forms. The developed method was rapid, accurate, sensitive, and reproducible for the quality control of XSTL.