Study on chemical profiles and metabolites of Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus as well as its representative steroidal saponins in rats by ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry

Abstract

Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus (AMB) is increasingly becoming popular as an edible vegetable or traditional folk medicine in East Asia due to its great health and medicinal properties. However, due to a lack of available research, the effective material of AMB still remains unknown. In this study, we applied a strategy utilising ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC/Q-TOF-MS) to investigate chemical profiles of AMB. In addition, metabolite profiles of five representative single steroidal saponins as well as AMB were investigated. Moreover, the metabolic features of saponins in AMB were summarised. After oral administration, the saponins underwent massive phase I and phase II metabolism. Sequential deglycosylation metabolism in rat intestine was the main metabolic pathway of the steroidal saponins, while oxidation, dehydrogenation, glucuronic acid reactions in liver also take part in further modification. These results expand our knowledge about the metabolism of AMB.

Keywords: Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus (AMB); Effective material; Metabolites; Steroidal saponins; UPLC/Q-TOF-MS.