• Qingfeng Liu, Zheng Jiao, Yi Liu, Zhongdong Li, Xiaojin Shi, Wenjian Wang, Bin Wang, and Mingkang Zhong.
• Clinical Pharmacy Laboratory, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, 12 Wu Lu Mu Qi M Road, Shanghai 200040, PR China.
• J Pharm Biomed Anal. 2016 Nov 30; 131: 20-32.

AbstractSan-Huang decoction (SHD), a traditional Chinese medical (TCM) formula, is made from five chinese herbs and has been widely used for centuries to treat metabolic syndrome, such as abdominal obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. In this work, an ultra high performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-ESI-Q-TOF-MS) method in both positive and negative ion mode was first employed to rapidly survey the major constituents in SHD. The analysis was performed on a Waters Acquity UPLC BEH C18 column at 45°C within 17min. 56 compounds in SHD including alkaloids, flavonoids, protostane triterpenoids, coumarins, triterpenoid saponins, organic acids, lignans, lactones and chromones were identified and tentatively characterized by comparison with retention times, accurate mass within 5ppm error and MS fragmentation ions. Among them, twenty-two compounds were clearly identified mainly by the reference standards. Moreover, this method was respectively applied to determine five batches of SHD and the decoctions of relative individual herbs. These results provide a helpful basic chemical profile for further research of SHD in vivo and exploitation of new drug to treat metabolic syndrome.Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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