Analysis and Identification of the Chemical Constituents of Ding-Zhi-Xiao-Wan Prescription by HPLC-IT-MSn and HPLC-Q-TOF-MS

Ding-Zhi-Xiao-Wan (DZXW) is a famous traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formula, which is composed of four herbs, Ginseng Radix, Poria, Polygala Radix and Acori Tatarinowii Rhizoma. It has been popularly used for the treatment of emotional disease, like Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, depression, anxiety, forgetfulness and neurasthenia. In this research, a high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with ion-trap tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-IT-MSn) method along with a high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (HPLC-Q-TOF-MS) method in negative ion mode was established to investigate the major constitutions in DZXW. The extracts were prepared by ultra-sonication in ethyl acetate, n-butanol, 95% ethanol and deionized water sequentially as well as in deionized water directly. A Kromasil C18 column was used to separate the extracts of DZXW. Acetonitrile and 0.1% aqueous formic acid (V/V) were used as the mobile phase. A total of 64 components were characterized, including 16 triterpenoids, 14 Polygala saponins, 10 oligosaccharide esters, 6 sucrose esters, 2 xanthone C-glycosides and 16 ginsenosides.