The Ministry of Education (MOE) Key Laboratory for Standardization of Chinese Medicines, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, China; The State Administration of TCM (SATCM) Key Laboratory for New Resources and Quality Evaluation of Chinese Medicines, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, China.
J Sep Sci. 2013 Sep;36(18):3115-22. doi: 10.1002/jssc.201300488. Epub 2013 Aug 21.
The objective of this study was to develop an effective strategy for screening and identifying mycotoxins in herbal medicine (HM). Here, Imperatae Rhizoma, a commonly used Chinese herb, was selected as a model HM. A crude drug contaminated with fungi was analyzed by comparing with uncontaminated ones. Ultra-performance LC coupled to tandem quadrupole TOF-MS (UPLC-Q-TOF-MS) with collision energy function was applied to analyze different samples from Imperatae Rhizoma. Then, MarkerLynx(TM) software was employed to screen the excess components in analytes, compared with control samples, and those selected markers were likely to be the metabolites of fungi. Furthermore, each of the accurate masses of the markers obtained from MarkerLynx(TM) was then searched in a mycotoxins/fungal metabolites database established in advance. The molecular formulas with relative mass error between the measured and theoretical mass within 5 ppm were chosen and then applied to MassFragment(TM) analysis for further confirmation of their structures. With the use of this approach, five mycotoxins that have never been reported in HM were identified in contaminated Imperatae Rhizoma. The results demonstrate the potential of UPLC-Q-TOF-MS coupled with the MarkerLynx(TM) software and MassFragment(TM) tool as an efficient and convenient method to screen and identify mycotoxins in herbal materials and aid in the quality control of HM.
本研究旨在开发一种有效的策略，用于筛选和鉴定草药（HM）中的真菌毒素。在这里，选择常用的中草药白茅根作为 HM 的模型。通过与未污染的样本进行比较，分析受真菌污染的粗药材。采用带有碰撞能功能的超高效液相色谱串联四极杆飞行时间质谱（UPLC-Q-TOF-MS）分析来自白茅根的不同样本。然后，使用 MarkerLynx（TM）软件筛选分析物中与对照样品相比过量的成分，这些被选择的标记物很可能是真菌的代谢物。此外，从 MarkerLynx（TM）获得的每个标记物的精确质量都在预先建立的真菌毒素/真菌代谢物数据库中进行搜索。选择相对分子质量误差在 5 ppm 以内的实测和理论质量之间的分子公式，然后应用 MassFragment（TM）分析进一步确认其结构。通过使用这种方法，在受污染的白茅根中鉴定出了五种从未在 HM 中报道过的真菌毒素。结果表明，UPLC-Q-TOF-MS 与 MarkerLynx（TM）软件和 MassFragment（TM）工具相结合，是一种用于筛选和鉴定草药材料中真菌毒素的有效且方便的方法，有助于 HM 的质量控制。
