Simultaneous analysis of eight bioactive compounds in Danning tablet by HPLC-ESI-MS and HPLC-UV

A high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) and ultraviolet detector (UV) has been developed for the simultaneous analysis of eight bioactive compounds in Danning tablet (including hyperin, hesperidin, resveratrol, nobiletin, curcumine, emodin, chrysophanol, and physcion), a widely used prescription of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). The chromatographic separation was performed on a ZORBAX Extend C₁₈ analytical column by gradient elution with acetonitrile and formate buffer (containing 0.05% formic acid, adjusted with triethylamine to pH 5.0) at a flow rate of 0.8 ml/min. The eight compounds in Danning tablet were identified and their MSⁿ fractions were elucidated by using HPLC-ESI-MS, and the contents of these compounds were determined by using HPLC-UV method. The standard calibration curves were linear between 5.0 and 100 μg/ml for hyperin, 10-200 μg/ml for hesperidin, 1.0-150 μg/ml for resveratrol, 2.0-120 μg/ml for nobiletin, 2.0-225 μg/ml for curcumine, 20-300 μg/ml for emodin, 2.0-200 μg/ml for chrysophanol, and 20-250 μg/ml for physcion with regression coefficient r² > 0.9995. The intra-day and inter-day precisions of this method were evaluated with the R.S.D. values less than 0.7% and 1.3%, respectively. The recoveries of the eight investigated compounds were ranged from 99.3% to 100.2% with R.S.D. values less than 1.5%. This method was successfully used to determine the 8 target compounds in 10 batches of Danning tablet.