R)-Salbutamol is a selective β2-adrenoreceptor agonist, which produces a shortacting bronchodilator effect and is widely used for the treatment of respiratory diseases in humans. Drug metabolism and identification of the metabolites play an essential role in the evaluation of the overall efficacy and safety of the drugs in clinical practices. There are few reports on the identification of major metabolites of (R)salbutamol in humans, and the number of identified metabolites is very limited. In this research, a method of ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry was developed for the discovery and identification of (R)-salbutamol and its major metabolites in human biological samples. Totally, twelve metabolites of (R)-salbutamol were found and identified and all the metabolites could be found in urine, one metabolite in plasma and two metabolites in feces. Among all the metabolites, eight metabolites have never been reported before. The results indicated that (R)-salbutamol was mainly metabolized through isomerization, oxidation, reduction, glucuronidation, and sulfation pathways in vivo. The possible metabolic pathways of (R)-salbutamol were subsequently presented in this study, which contribute to a better understanding of the metabolism of (R)-salbutamol in humans. K E Y W O R D S biological samples, metabolic pathways, quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry, (R)-salbutamol, ultra-high performance liquid chromatography Article Related Abbreviations: CID, collision-induced dissociation; M, metabolite; PIS, product ion scanning; RA, relative abundance. Fengying Ye and Shan Liu contributed equally to this work.and (S)-salbutamol. It is well-known that the enantiomers of a chiral drug have different pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetic behaviors [3,4]. (R)-Salbutamol is the active β2 receptor stimulant while (S)-salbutamol is presumed to be inert. Thus, (R)-salbutamol carries most of the therapeutically bronchoprotective and bronchodilator effects and has been approved as a new drug for the treatment of pulmonary diseases [5].The investigation of drug metabolism is of great significance to the evaluation of the efficacy and safety of clinical drugs. Some early researches reported the major metabolites 3200