XiaoyanLidan tablets (XYLDTs) are traditional Chinese medicines frequently used for syndromes of the liver and gallbladder, cholecystitis and cholangitis. To evaluate the consistency of the quality of commercial XYLDT preparations, we established a simple and reliable ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) method with a photodiode array (PDA) detector and mass spectrometry (MS), including a fingerprint analysis and quantification of the main pharmacologically-active markers. In the UPLC-PDA detection-based fingerprint analysis of XYLDTs, approximately 39 peaks were found in the XYLDT chromatogram, 26 of which were attributed to Picrasmaquassioides, nine to Andrographis and four to Isodonserra. Subsequently, the structures of these bioactive markers were identified through ESI-MS analyses. Using the chemometricmethods of similarity analysis and principal component analysis, the five significant herbal componentswere determined as 4-methoxy-5-hydroxycanthin-6-one, andrographolide, dehydroandrographolide, neoandrographolide and rosmarinic acid, and these components were qualitatively assessed. Our experimental results demonstrated that combining the fingerprint analysis with UPLC-MS and multi-ingredient determination is useful for rapid pharmaceutical quality evaluation. Moreover, the combined approach can potentially differentiate the origin, determine the authenticity and assess the overall quality of the formulae.
Keywords: UPLC-MS; XiaoyanLidan tablets; chromatographic fingerprint; formulae; traditional Chinese medicine.