Fingerprint Analysis and Quantitative Determination of Fourteen Active Components in the Traditional Chinese Medicinal Preparation changweiyan Capsule by HPLC-DAD-ESI-MS/MS.

changweiyan capsule (FY capsule), a traditional Chinese medicinal preparation consisting of three medicinal herbs, has been used to treat bacterial dysentery, acute, and chronic gastroenteritis for several decades. In this study, a novel, convenient, accurate, and valid method was developed by using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with diode array detection (DAD) to obtain a chromatographic fingerprint of changweiyan capsule (FY capsule). Then, fourteen peaks were identified according to MS/MS fragmentation behavior of the reference standards by using HPLC-DAD-ESI-MS/MS analysis. At the same time, the fingerprint similarity was calculated and the contents of known ingredients were also determined simultaneously. The result demonstrated that the HPLC fingerprint combining similarity evaluation and quantification analysis can be successfully applied to control the quality of FY capsule.