Development of an analytical strategy to identify and classify the global chemical constituents of Ziziphi Spinosae Semen by using UHPLC with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry combined with multiple data-processing approaches.

According to traditional Chinese medical theory, Ziziphi Spinosae Semen needs to be stir-fried before clinical application for its sedative-hypnotic effect enhancement. A rapid and comprehensive analysis strategy of ultra high performance liquid chromatography with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry and multiple data analysis platforms was developed for the efficient and sensitive identification of components in crude and parched Ziziphi Spinosae Semen to explore the composition changes that happen during the stir-frying process. Both positive and negative ion modes were applied for mass spectrometry detection, and 40 components were identified from crude and parched Ziziphi Spinosae Semen, respectively. Principal component analysis and t-test were applied to find differences between crude and parched Ziziphi Spinosae Semen. As a result, Ziziphi Spinosae Semen samples could be clearly divided into two groups according to their processing methods, and 19 key markers that contributed to the classification significantly (P < 0.05) were found. This kind of change in contents of components might be responsible for the recommended clinical application of parched Ziziphi Spinosae Semen.