Global detection and identification of components from crude and processed traditional Chinese medicine by liquid chromatography connected with hybrid ion trap and time-of-flight-mass spectrometry.

We herein present a chemical profiling method to efficiently process the information acquired by ultra fast liquid chromatography (UFLC)-electrospray ionization source in combination with hybrid ion trap and high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UFLC-(ESI)-IT-TOF/MS), facilitating the structural determination of serial components contained in crude or processed traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Under the optimized UFLC and IT-TOF-MS(n) conditions, over 39 compounds were separated and detected in crude or processed Fructus corni within 25 min. The components were identified by comparing the mass spectra and retention time with reference compounds, or tentatively assigned by elucidating low-energy collision-induced dissociation (CID) fragment ions and matching empirical molecular formula with that of the published compounds. Several factors in the processing procedure were examined. The experimental results demonstrate that the chemical reactions that occurred in the processing procedure can be used to elucidate the processed mechanism of F. corni, which is regularly affected by the processing conditions. This study provides a novel approach and methodology to identify the complicated components from various complex mixtures such as crude TCM, processed TCM, and biological samples. It can be used as a valid analytical method for further understanding the processing mechanism of TCM, along with the intrinsic quality control of TCM and its processed product.