ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To establish a UHPLC-MS/MS method for simultaneous determination of tangertin, hesperetin, 5-demethylnobiletin, nobiletin, vitexin, and narirutin in Rukuaixiao granules. METHODS: The analysis method was performed on a Waters ACQUITY UPLC® BEH C18 eolumn (2.1 mm×50 mm, 1.7 μm) with gradient elution of acetonitrile (containing 0.1% formic acid)-0.1% formic acid at a flow rate of 0.6 mL·min-1, and the column temperature was set at 50℃. Electrospray ionization (ESI) source with positive mode and the detector with multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode were adopted to determine the analytes by mass spectormeter. RESULTS: Satisfactory linearities were obtained for the six constituents in the investigated ranges (r>0.9958): The lower limit of quantitation (LOQ) was 0.80, 1.10, 1.30, 0.66, 2.00, 7.10 and 0.70 ng·mL-1, respectively. All the recoveries of samples were between 95.78%-101.35% with RSDs less than 2.1%. CONCLUSION: The method is simple, rapid, sensitive, and highly reproducible. It can be applied to the quality control of Rukuaixiao granules.