Simultaneous Determination of 15 Flavonoids in Herb Pair by HPLC Q-TOF MS.

The herb pair has appeared in classical prescriptions and has usually been used for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory conditions. For quality control of this herb pair, a rapid and reliable HPLC-quadrupole-time-of-flight(Q-TOF)-MS method was used for the simultaneous determination of alpinetin, apigenin-7-O-β-D-glucopyranoside, scutellarein, apigenin, quercetin-3-O-β-D-glucopyranoside, wogonoside, quercetin, amentoflavone, wogonin, chrysin, luteolin, rutin, naringenin, baicalein, and baicalin in the herb pair. LC-MS analysis was performed on a Shimadzu HPLC 20ADXR LC system in-line with an AB-SCIEX 5600 Triple TOF mass spectrometer. The calibration curves showed good linearity in a relatively wide concentration range ( >0.996). The LOD and LOQ were less than 20 and 68 ng/mL, respectively. The relative standard deviation (RSD) values of intraday and inter-day precision were <3.31% for all the analytes. The recoveries of the method were in the range of 94.6-106.0%, with RSD <4.72%. The RSD values of peak areas in the stability study were not more than 4.28% for all analytes within 2 days. These results revealed that the method exhibited good sensitivity, precision, accuracy, and stability. This method could be applied to the quantitative determination of 15 flavonoids in the herb pair. () The established method of HPLC-Q-TOF-MS is simple, fast, sensitive, and reliable. () 15 Flavonoids in the herb pair were simultaneous determined.