Simultaneous determination of nine bioactive components in Sishen Pills by HPLC-ESI-MS/MS / 中草药

ABSTRACT

Objective To develop and validate an high performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS/MS) method for simultaneously qualitative and quantitative determination of nine major bioactive components (deoxyschizandrin, γ-schizandrin, schizandrin, schizandrol B, schisantherin A, psoralen, isopsoralen, evodiamine, and rutaecarpine) in Sishen Pills. Methods The chromatographic separation was performed on an Agilent Zorbax Eclipse Plus C18 column (100 mm × 4.6mm, 3.5 μm) with a gradient elution of methanol and 0.1% formic acid in water at a flow rate of 0.4 mL/min, and the injection volume was 20 μL. The nine major bioactive components were detected using an electrospray ionization source in positive ionization mode (ESI+) and quantified by multiple reaction monitor (MRM) scanning at the same time. Results The linear ranges of deoxyschizandrin, γ-schizandrin, schizandrin, schizandrol B, schisantherin A, psoralen, isopsoralen, evodiamine, and rutaecarpine were 8.50-850.00 ng/mL (r = 0.999 7), 1.32-132.00 ng/mL (r = 0.997 4), 9.60-960.00 ng/mL (r = 0.999 8), 12.00-1 200.00 ng/mL (r = 0.999 3), 11.50-1 150.00 ng/mL (r = 0.997 9), 21.70-2 170.00 ng/mL (r = 0.999 7), 23.80-2 380.00 ng/mL (r = 0.999 6), 10.70-1 070.00 ng/mL (r = 0.999 5), 8.54-854.00 ng/mL (r = 0.998 0), and the average recoveries were 98.3% (RSD = 2.21%), 100.3% (RSD = 1.78%), 99.2% (RSD = 2.19%), 100.4% (RSD = 2.23%), 99.1% (RSD = 2.18%), 97.7% (RSD = 3.03%), 99.0% (RSD = 2.51%), 98.9% (RSD = 2.72%), and 100.3% (RSD = 2.10%), respectively. The contents of eight batches of the nine major bioactive components were 67.6-425.6, 0-131.5, 2.1-258.0, 0-71.2, 23.2-678.8, 806.4-1310.8, 718.5-1293.7, 11.5-123.2, and 10.9-62.4 μg/g, respectively. Conclusion The developed method is simple, specific, and sensitive, and it can be applied for the determination of nine major bioactive components and the quality control of Sishen Pills collected from different production batches.