Simultaneous Determination of 18 Chemical Constituents in Traditional Chinese Medicine of Antitussive by UPLC-MS-MS

In this study, a simple, rapid and sensitive liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS) method was developed for the simultaneous determination of 18 compounds, namely, morphine, codeine, tuberostemonine, thebaine, papaverine, scopoletin, liquiritin, narcotine, gynaroside, hyperoside, hesperidin, isoliquiritin, liquiritigenin, luteolin, isoliquiritigenin, apigenin, formononetin and glycyrrhizic acid in traditional Chinese medicine of antitussive. Analytes were chromatographically separated on a Waters C-18 column under gradient elution with a mobile phase of water containing 0.1 parts per thousand HOAc (A) and methanol (MeOH) containing 0.1 parts per thousand HOAc (B). Detection was accomplished by multiple-reaction-monitoring scanning with an electrospray ionization source under positive and negative ion switching modes. Samples were prepared with dilution and ultrasonic extraction. All components were detected within the linear regime (r(2) >= 0.9924) at the concentration ranges tested. The precision ranged from 1.3 to 4.6%, the accuracy was between 85.6 and 116.7% and the results of method validation tests were all within the required limits. The validated quantification method was successfully applied to analyze 40 batches of commercial traditional Chinese medicine of antitussive. These results will provide a basis for quality control of production process and the further pharmacokinetic study of traditional Chinese medicine of antitussive in vivo.