UHPLC with High Performance Tandem Mass Spectrometry for Studies of Botanical Dietary Supplement Safety and Efficacy

The mission of the UIC/NIH Center for Botanical Dietary Supplements Research is to evaluate the safety and efficacy of botanical dietary supplements with a focus on women's health. Botanicals are selected for study based on ethnobotanical use and then botanically authenticated, extracted and fractionated for experiments designed to determine mechanisms of action, identification of active constituents, and safety. In support of all of these studies, ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) in combination with triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry or high resolution tandem mass spectrometry is essential for the characterization, identification and quantitative analysis of active constituents and their metabolites. Compared with the iterative process of bioassay-guided fractionation, ultrafiltration high resolution mass spectrometry significantly shortens the time required for the identification of estrogenic or chemopreventive active constituents. Quantitative analysis of active constituents in botanical preparations or human serum in support of pharmacokinetics studies demands the selectivity of mass spectrometry, and the use of UHPLC in place of HPLC enhances the throughput of these assay by up to 12-fold. Finally, UHPLC-MS-MS enhances the productivity of studies of metabolism, metabolic activation, and drug-botanical interactions. Supported by grant P50 AT000155 from the NIH ODS and NCCAM