Quantitative analysis of biologically active ingredients of Five Seeds Combo by liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry for quality control of commercial herbal product

Five Seeds Combo (Wu Zi Yan Zong Wan) is a traditional Chinese herbal formula composed of Fructus Lycii, Semen Cuscutae, Fructus Rubi, Semen Plantaginis, and Fructus Schisandrae. This herbal prescription has been developed into herbal products by many pharmaceutical manufacturers for treating age-related symptoms. The present study aims to develop an analytical method for the quality control of this herbal drug. Nine active ingredients including schisantherin A, schisandrin B, schisandrin, schisandrin A, quercitrin, betaine, verbascoside, hyperoside, and kaempferol were selected as the targeted analytes for the analysis. By using liquid chromatogram/quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MS), the nine chemical compounds were determined simultaneously from the chromatogram. The parameters for MS were optimized by orthogonal array testing and the best condition of the MS for the determination of the nine marker compounds was found to be 175, 75, and 700 V for fragmentor, skimmer, and voltage of capillary, respectively. The method validation showed that this analytical method had high precision and sensitivity (limit of quantitation was smaller than 10 ng/mL for most of the analytes). The method was found to be able to demonstrate the quality of Five Seeds Combo from different manufacturers.