Jinmu-tang (JMT) is a traditional herbal medicine consisting of five herbal medicines: Poria cocos Wolf, Paeonia lactiflora Pallas, Zingiber officinale Roscoe, Atractylodes japonica Koidzumi, and Aconitum carmichaeli Debeaux. In this study, the JMT components were profiled using UHPLC-Q-Orbitrap-MS, and 23 compounds were identified and characterized. In addition, UPLC-TQ-MS/MS analysis was performed in the positive and negative ion modes of an electrospray ionization source for the simultaneous quantification of the identified compounds. The multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) method was established to increase the sensitivity of the quantitative analysis, and the method was verified through linearity, recovery, and precision. All analytes showed good linearity (R2 ≤ 0.9990). Moreover, the recovery and the relative standard deviation of precision were 86.19-114.62% and 0.20-8.00%, respectively. Using the established MRM analysis method, paeoniflorin was found to be the most abundant compound in JMT. In conclusion, these results provide information on the constituents of JMT and can be applied to quality control and evaluation.
Keywords: Jinmu-tang; UHPLC-Q-Orbitrap-MS; UPLC-TQ-MS/MS; quality control; traditional herbal medicine prescription.