Ultra high performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry for rapid separation and identification of main constituents in Chinese herbal formula Xuan Hu Suo San

Xuan Hu Suo San (XHSS) is a traditional Chinese medicine that has been extensively applied in the treatment of osteoarthritis for many years, however, its chemical composition has not yet been elucidated. Thus, a rapid, efficient, and precise method based on ultra high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry was applied in both positive- and negative-ion modes to rapidly separate and identify the main chemical ingredients in XHSS for the first time. Finally, with the optimised separation and detection method, a total of 57 compounds were simultaneously separated within 13 min, among which 14 compounds were confirmed by comparing retention time and MS data with reference standards and others were tentatively identified by comparing with reference literatures. This rapid and sensitive approach is highly useful for the identification and characterisation of chemical constituents, and provides fundamental and extensive information supporting further metabolic and pharmacokinetic studies of XHSS.