Identification and determination of chemical constituents from Yinchen Qingjin granules by ultra high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with linear ion trap-Orbitrap mass spectrometry

An ultra high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with linear ion trap-Orbitrap mass spectrometry method had been used to identify chemical constituents in Yinchen Qingjin Granules. A total of 117 chemical constituents were tentatively identified based on the molecular weight, the mass fragmentation behavior, and the comparison with retention time and accurate mass of reference standards. Meanwhile, an ultra high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry method has been developed to evaluate the quality of Yinchen Qingjin Granules through a simultaneous determination of ten components, namely gallic acid, shanzhiside, neochlorogenic acid, chlorogenic acid, caffeic acid, geniposide, liquirition, isoliquirition, glycyrrhizic acid, and rhein. Altogether, content levels of each compound ranged from 0.228 to 8.712 mg/g. At the same time, a hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography combined with UV for the quantification of sarmentosin in Yinchen Qingjin Granules is presented and its content was from 5.608 to 6.200 mg/g. The linearity, accuracy, and precision of these two validation methods were satisfactory. The both determination methods were successfully used for the analysis of six batches of Yinchen Qingjin Granules samples made in China and could be as suitable analytical method for quality control.