Abstract
An high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method has been
optimised and
established for the quality evaluation of the traditional Chinese medicine Dan Deng
Tong Nao
capsules through simultaneous determination of the following eight active components:
danshensu,
salvianolic acid A, salvianolic acid C, puerarin, scutellarin, apigenin,
3,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde, and ferulic acid. All of the analytes were separated on
a Waters
Xbridge™ C18 column (4.6 × 150 mm, 3.5 µm particle size) with a mobile phase
consisting of methanol/acetonitrile (50 : 50, v/v) and water containing 0.1 % formic
acid. All
of the compounds showed good linearity (R2 > 0.997). The recoveries, measured at
three concentration levels, varied from 94.94 to 107.3 %. The validated method was
successfully
applied to evaluate the eight active components in Dan Deng Tong Nao capsules collected
from
different production batches. The results suggested that the method established in
this study
could be considered a good approach to controlling the quality of Dan Deng Tong Nao
capsules and
other related botanical drugs.
Key words
Dan Deng Tong Nao capsules - quantitative analysis - quality evaluation - LC-MS/MS
