RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: To establish a new qualitative and quantitative screening method for 114 illegal adulterants in traditional Chinese medicine for health care based on high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with high four-stage electrostatic field orbital well tandem mass spectrometry. METHODS: Using 0.1% formic acid aqueous solution-acetonitrile as mobile phase, gradient elution was performed on SHISEIDO CAPCELL PAK C18 column(3.0 mm×100 mm,3 μm)with column temperature of 40 ℃ and flow rate of 0.3 mL•min-1. The gradient elution program was as follows: 0-18 min, acetonitrile was from 2% to 100%; 18-23 min, acetonitrile was 100%; 23.1-25 min, acetonitrile was 2%. The mass spectrometry was carried out with electrospray ionization source, four stage electrostatic field track mass spectrometry as mass analyzer, and scanning range m/z 120-750, spray voltage 3.5 kV, sheath pressure (N2) 275.8 kPa, auxiliary air pressure (N2) 68.95 kPa. High resolution and high quality mass spectrometry data of parent ions and fragment ions were obtained simultaneously by one injection. The structures of illegal additions were further confirmed by the accurate mass of secondary mass spectrometry. RESULTS: This method could simultaneously detect 114 kinds of illegally added chemical drugs of 11 categories including tranquilizers, hormones, slimming, hypoglycemic, hypotensive, lipid-lowering, psychotropic, antiviral, antitussive, analgesic and aphrodisiac drugs within 25 min. The linear range, sensitivity, repeatability and recovery rate all met the requirements of analysis. CONCLUSION: The screening method established by four-stage electrostatic field orbital trap mass spectrometry coupled with HPLC is fast, convenient, accurate and retrospective, and can meet the needs of screening confirmation for target and non-target illegal additions.