RESUMEN
Objective To establish a quantitative analysis method of multiple active components liquiritin, vitexin, baicalin, rutin, cryptochlorogenic acid, chlorogenic acid, quercetin, and kaempferol in Qingreling Granules (QG) based on UHPLC-ESI-HRMSn, in order to provide a comprehensive evaluation for the quality control of QG. Methods The chromatographic separation was carried on BEH C18 (100 mm × 2.1 mm, 1.7 μm) column with methanol-0.1% formic acid water as mobile phase at the flow rate of 0.3 mL/min. Full scan mode with an electrospray ionization (ESI) source was used for the detection. The quantitative determination results were calculated by the pattern recognition function of the software SIMCA 14.1 to evaluate the quality of QG. Results Liquiritin, baicalin, rutin, vitexin, quercetin, chlorogenic acid, cryptochlorogenic acid, and kaempferol all showed good liners relationship (r ≥ 0.999 0) in the ranges of 570-9 127, 10 032-160 500, 293-4 690, 1 625-26 000, 40.5-645, 41-1 325, 44-1 413, and 13-209 ng/mL, respectively. The precision, repeatability, and stability were all up to the standards. The recoveries of standard addition was 98.83% to 100.65% with precision of below 3% RSD (n = 5). The average mass fractions of liquiritin, baicalin, rutin, vitexin, quercetin, chlorogenic acid, cryptochlorogenic acid, and kaempferol in five batches of QG were 202.07-438.15, 10 258.03-11 046.56, 56.09-87.7, 689.19-818.56, 4.95-6.0, 8.87-18.37, 22.49-42.12, 3.21-4.11 μg/g, respectively. The data analyzed by SIMCA 14.1 showed that the quality deviation of five batches of QG were within ± 2. Conclusion The method established in this study is simple, rapid, sensitive and accurate. The results of methodology conform to the relevant requirements and the method can be used as a quantitative method for the active ingredients in QG. The research also provides a new basis for the quality control at the same time.