Simultaneous analysis of seven astragalosides in Radix Astragali and related preparations by liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry

A method has been developed for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of pharmacologically active astragalosides isolated from several species of the genus Astragalus by high performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Seven astragalosides in Radix Astragali and their commercial pharmaceutical preparations were analyzed using the developed method. The extracted ion current chromatograms were obtained from the total ion current chromatogram using the m/z of [M+Na](+) ions produced by target compounds for peak determination. The limits of detection and limits of quantification were in the range of 0.10 - 0.22 ng and 0.22 - 0.52 ng in full scan mode, respectively. All calibration curves showed good linear regression (r(2) >= 0.9965) within the test range. The overall intra- and inter-day precision was less than 2.86% for peak area and the accuracy was higher than 92.9% on using ginsenoside I as internal standard. The assay was successfully utilized to analyze the major biologically active astragalosides in six samples of Astragalus membranaceus (Fisch.) Bge var. mongholicus (Bge.) Hsiao. and eight commercial preparations. The overall results demonstrate that this method is simple, selective, and suitable for the quality control of Chinese medicine and their preparation in the low nanogram range.