Simultaneous determination of 24 constituents in Cortex Lycii using high-performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry.

Abstract A fast high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with electrospray ionization (ESI) tandem mass spectrometry method was developed to determine 24 components including 11 phenolic compounds, 9 phenolic amides, and 4 cyclic peptides in Cortex Lycii. The analytes were quantified by a triple quadrupole instrument in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The fragmentation patterns of phenolic amides and cyclic peptides using ESI and collision-induced dissociation (CID) techniques are reported. This assay method was validated with respect to linearity ( r 2  > 0.9920), precision, repeatability, and accuracy (recovery rate between 93.0 and 105.9% with RSD