Separation and identification of 20 chemical constituents in the traditional Chinese medicinal preparation Shenbao tablet by LC-ESI-MS3.

A sensitive and specific high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-electrospray ionization multiple-stage mass spectrometry for the simultaneous separation and identification of 20 chemical constituents in the traditional Chinese medicinal preparation of the Shenbao tablet is established. The samples are separated with an Alltima C(18) column (250 x 4.6 mm, 5 microm) by linear gradient elution using water-acetic acid (A; 100:0.5, v/v) and acetonitrile (B; 0 min, 76:24; 15 min, 70:30; 40 min, 53:47; 50 min, 30:70; and maintain 10 min) as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The ion trap mass spectrometer is coupled to the HPLC system. Satisfactory results are obtained within 60 min for the simultaneous separation and identification of the 20 constituents. This is the first report on the analysis of main chemical constituents in the Shenbao tablet.