Rapid and Simultaneously Determination of Six Aristolochic Acids and Two Lignans in Asari Radix Et Rhizoma by Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography-Triple Quadrupole Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Asari Radix et Rhizoma (AR) is a well-known Chinese herbal medicine which has been used to treat cold headache, toothache, runny nose, rhinorrhea, rheumatism and cough in China. However, the existing Pharmacopoeia standard of AR is still unable to comprehensively evaluating the overall efficacy and safety of AR, whose traditional HPLC detection method has great limitations for the detection of trace aristolochic acids. In order to improving the quality control method of AR, a rapid, simple, and reliable chromatographic analytic method based on ultra performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-QQQ-MS) was established for the analysis of 8 target compounds, including 6 aristolochic acids derivates aristolochic acid (AA)-I, AA-II, AA-III, AA-IVa, AA-VIIa, aristololactam I (AL-I), and 2 lignans asarinin and sesamin. Chromatographic separation has been achieved on an ACQUITY UPLC BEH C18 column (50 mm × 2.1 mm, id 1.8 μm) with a mobile phase consisted of water containing 0.1% formic acid (A) and acetonitrile (B) with gradient elution manner. Positive electrospray ionization mode with multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) was applied for the detection of the eight analytes. Method validation results indicated that UPLC-QQQ-MS was precise, accurate and sensitive for quantitative determination of the eight analytes. Finally, the method was successfully used to the analysis of each component in 15 batches of AR herb samples. In addition to existing marker ingredients AA-I and asarinin, considerable amounts of AA-IVa, AA-VIIa, AL-I and sesamin were also found in each AR sample. The result suggesting that AA-IVa, AA-VIIa, AL-I should be limited and sesamin should be added as a quality marker for the quality control of AR.