Analysis of sugars in traditional Chinese drugs.

This review is presented of chromatography and electromigration methods currently in use to determine sugars in traditional Chinese drugs: gas chromatography (GC), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), ion-exchange chromatography, gel column chromatography (GCC), paper chromatography (PC) and thin layer chromatography (TLC), capillary electrophoresis (CE) and gel electrophoresis (GEP). The detection methods combined with above separation methods including ultra-violet, mass spectra, fluorescent light, refractive index (RI), electrochemical detection are also described. For the complicacy of structural analysis of polysaccharides in traditional Chinese drugs, the hyphenation procedures concerned with this analysis are introduced in this article too.