Rapid simultaneous identification and determination of the multiple compounds in crude Fructus Corni and its processed products by HPLC–MS/MS with multiple reaction monitoring mode

Abstract

Context: Fructus Corni, a traditional Chinese medicines, is derived from the dry ripe sarcocarp of Cornus officinalis Sieb. et Zucc (Cornaceae). Gallic acid, 5-hydroxymethylfurfural, morroniside, sweroside, loganin, cornin, 7-O-methyl-morroniside and cornuside are the active constituents of Fructus Corni used in many traditional Chinese medicines. This paper describes a sensitive and specific assay for the determination of the eight bioactive compounds in crude and processed Fructus Corni extracts.

Materials and methods: In this paper, the eight components were determined by high performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (MS/MS). Quantization was based on multiple reaction monitoring using the precursor production combination for determination of the eight analytes. The analysis was performed on an Agilent Zorbax Extend C₁₈ column (100 mm × 3.0 mm, 3.5 μm), and an electrospray ionization (ESI)-tandem interface in the positive and negative ion polarity mode was employed prior to mass spectrometric detection.

Results: With the optimized conditions, the eight bioactive compounds were detected properly within 10 min. The developed method showed good precision and reproducibility with the limits of detection ranged from 0.0042 to 12.7875 ng/mL and the average recoveries ranged from 97.08 to 103.7%.

Discussion and conclusion: This newly established method is validated as simple, reliable and accurate. It can be used as a valid analytical method for intrinsic quality control of crude and processed Fructus Corni.

Keywords::

• High performance liquid chromatography
• triple quadrupole mass spectrometry
• multiple reactions monitoring
• quality control

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Zhiwei Xu and Sucai Luo who provided suggestions to improve the English and quality of the second revision of the paper.

Declaration of interest

The authors are grateful for financial support of the Open Project of National First-Class Key Discipline for Science of Chinese Materia Medica, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine (2011ZYX2-006), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.81202918, No. 81274056, No. 30873438, No.81173546), the International Science and Technology Cooperation Project of Jiangsu Province, China (No. BZ2011053), the Project of Science and Technology of Chinese Medicine of Zhejiang Province, China (No. 2009CB008), the fund of Zhejiang Modernization of Traditional Chinese Medicine ([2008]436), the Chinese Medicine Research Program of Zhejiang Province, China (2008ZA002, 2011ZB101), and the Science Foundation of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University (7211093).