Simultaneous Quantification of Six Constituents in Qing-Huo-Zhi-Mai Tablet by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry

A novel sensitive and specific high-performance liquid chromatography‐tandem mass spectrometry method was established for the simultaneous determination of six constituents including geniposide, andrographolide, dehydroandrographolide, ophiopogonin D, methylophiopogonanone A and methylophiopogonanone B in Qing-huo-zhimai (QHZM) tablet, a well-known Chinese herbal preparation. The chromatographic separation was performed on a C18 column, and the mobile phasewas composed of 0.04% acetic acid and acetonitrile with gradient elution. The detection of analytes was carried out by multiple reaction monitoring scanning with switching electrospray ion source polarity between positive and negative modes in a single run. The total run time was 15 min. The calibration curves were linear with all correlation coefficients >0.9979 in the tested ranges. The intra- and interday variations were no >7.0%, and the average recoveries were in the range of 93.2‐108.5% with the relative standard deviations no >5.4%. The developed method was successfully employed to analyze five batches of QHZM tablet samples. This is the first time for the determination of ophiopogonin D, methylophiopogonanone A and methylophiopogonanone B in QHZM tablets.