Serum Pharmacochemistry of TCM for Screening the Active Ingredients From Wen-Xin Formulae

Abstract Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has its own unique medical system with the significant characteristics of pursuing an overall therapeutic effect with a multitarget treatment. It consists of multiple medicinal plants, regulates balance and homeostasis of the body in a holistic fashion, and exerts synergistic effects via the interaction of individual metabolites in the formulae. Because of the complexity of the chemical compositions and many endogenous intervening substances, it is challenging to identify chemical constituents and metabolites related to TCM. Fortunately, serum pharmacochemisty of TCM has been proved to be helpful to elucidate the effective constituents and metabolites of herbal medicines. Many analytical methods have been successfully applied in the analysis of TCM formulae and liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was widely applied for the analysis of herbal constituents in vivo. Especially, ultraperformance liquid chromatography (UPLC) with minor particles (sub-1.8 μm) has greatly improved sensitivity, resolution, and speed, integrating with MS to form a high-performance platform for TCM. The MetaboLynx data processing approach is concerned with the analysis and interpretation of complex data variables.