Simultaneous determination of 12 bioactive constituents in Bupi Yiqi No. 1 Recipe by ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

Abstract

Background: Bupi Yiqi No. 1 Recipe (BPYQ), a traditional Chinese medicine formula, has been widely used as a treatment of multidrug resistance during chemotherapy in colorectal cancer and for the prevention of gastrointestinal cancer recurrence for decades. Objective: In this study, a rapid, reliable, and accurate ultrahigh-performance LC (UHPLC) coupled with electrospray ionization (ESI)–tandem MS (MS/MS) method was developed for the simultaneous determination of 12 major bioactive components, including protocatechuic acid, astilbin, rutin, calycosin-7-O-β-D-glucoside, ginsenoside Re, ononin, isoliquiritigenin, calycosin, apigenin, ginsenoside Rb1, formononetin, and glycyrrhizic acid in BPYQ. Methods: The chromatographic separation of the analytes was achieved on a Poroshell 120 SB-Aq column (50 × 2.1 mm, 1.7 µm) with a mobile phase of acetonitrile and 0.1% (v/v) formic acid aqueous solution. The flow rate and column temperature were set at 0.4 mL/min and 30°C, respectively. Mass spectrometric detection of the analyses was performed on multiple reaction monitoring mode in positive and negative ESI mode. Results: The established UHPLC–ESI–MS/MS method was validated in terms of the linearity, precision, repeatability, stability, and accuracy. All calibration curves of the 12 compounds showed good linearity, with correlation coefficients (r) greater than 0.9980 within the test ranges. The LODs and LOQs for the 12 compounds were in the ranges of 0.08–1.32 and 0.27–5.28 ng/mL, respectively. The average recoveries of all the standard compounds were between 98.4 and 102.9%, and their relative SD values ranged from 1.24 to 3.78%. Conclusions: The proposed method can provide a meaningful basis for the QC of BPYQ. Highlights: The established UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS method was demonstrated to be a powerful tool for quantifying the 12 compounds in BPYQ.