Identification of the absorbed components and metabolites of modified Huo Luo Xiao Ling Dan in rat plasma by UHPLC‐Q‐TOF/MS/MS

Abstract

To reveal the material basis of Huo Luo Xiao Ling Dan (HLXLD), a sensitive and selective ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-TOF/MS) method was developed to identify the absorbed components and metabolites in rat plasma after oral administration of HLXLD. The plasma samples were pretreated by liquid-liquid extraction and separated on a Shim-pack XR-ODS C column (75 × 3.0 mm, 2.2 μm) using a gradient elution program. With the optimized conditions and single sample injection of each positive or negative ion mode, a total of 109 compounds, including 78 prototype compounds and 31 metabolites, were identified or tentatively characterized. The fragmentation patterns of representative compounds were illustrated as well. The results indicated that aromatization and hydration were the main metabolic pathways of lactones and tanshinone-related metabolites; demethylation and oxidation were the major metabolic pathways of alkaloid-related compounds; methylation and sulfation were the main metabolic pathways of phenolic acid-related metabolites. It is concluded the developed UHPLC-Q-TOF/MS method with high sensitivity and resolution is suitable for identifying and characterizing the absorbed components and metabolites of HLXLD, and the results will provide essential data for further studying the relationship between the chemical components and pharmacological activity of HLXLD.

Optimization of Distillation Conditions for Improved Recovery of Phthalides from Celery (Apium graveolens L.) Seeds

“…The formation of dimers and sodium adducts was also observed. The recorded spectra are in agreement with previous reports[Li et al, 2003;Niu et al, 2008;Wang et al, 2018;Zhang X. et al, 2003;Zhang L. et al, 2012;Zuo et al, 2011].…”