R&D Department, GenChim Testing (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Shanghai 200131, China; Shanghai Research Center for Modernization of Traditional Chinese Medicine, National Engineering Laboratory for TCM Standardization Technology, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, China.
Key Laboratory of State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Sunshine Lake Pharma Co. Ltd., Guangdong 523850, China.
Chin J Nat Med. 2019 Aug;17(8):631-640. doi: 10.1016/S1875-5364(19)30066-4.
Characterization of aqueous extract in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is challenging due to the poor retention of the analytes on conventional C columns. This study presents a systematic characterization method based on a rapid chromatographic separation (8 min) on a polar-modified C (Waters Cortecs T3) column of aqueous extract of Cordyceps sinensis. UHPLC-HRMS method was used to profile components in both untargeted and targeted manners by full MS/PIL/dd-MS acquisition approach. The components were identified or tentatively identified by reference standards comparison, fragmentation rules elucidation and available databases search. A total of 91 components, including 10 nucleobases, 20 nucleosides, 39 dipeptides, 18 amino acids and derivatives and 4 other components, were characterized from the aqueous extract of C. sinensis. And this was the first time to systematically report the presence of nucleosides and dipeptides in C. sinensis, especially for modified nucleosides. The chemical basis inquiry of this work would be beneficial to mechanism exploration and quality control of C. sinensis and related products. Meanwhile, this work also provided an effective solution for characterization of aqueous extract in TCM.
由于分析物在常规 C 柱上的保留较差，因此对中药（TCM）的水提取物进行特征描述具有挑战性。本研究提出了一种基于极性改性 C（Waters Cortecs T3）柱的快速色谱分离（8 分钟）对冬虫夏草水提取物进行系统特征描述的方法。采用 UHPLC-HRMS 方法，通过全 MS/PIL/dd-MS 采集方法，以非靶向和靶向方式对成分进行分析。通过参考标准比较、碎片规则阐明和可用数据库搜索，对成分进行了鉴定或初步鉴定。从冬虫夏草的水提取物中鉴定出 91 种成分，包括 10 种碱基、20 种核苷、39 种二肽、18 种氨基酸及其衍生物和 4 种其他成分。这是首次系统地报道冬虫夏草中核苷和二肽的存在，尤其是修饰核苷。这项工作的化学基础研究将有助于探索冬虫夏草及其相关产品的机制和质量控制。同时，这项工作还为 TCM 水提取物的特征描述提供了有效的解决方案。
