Fast separation of triterpenoid saponins using supercritical fluid chromatography coupled with single quadrupole mass spectrometry

Abstract

a b s t r a c tTriterpenoid saponins (TSs) are the most important components of some traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) and have exhibited valuable pharmacological properties. In this study, a rapid and efficient method was developed for the separation of kudinosides, stauntosides and ginsenosides using supercritical fluid chromatography coupled with single quadrupole mass spectrometry (SFC-MS). The separation conditions for the selected TSs were carefully optimized after the initial screening of eight stationary phases. The best compromise for all compounds in terms of chromatographic performance and MS sensitivity was obtained when water (5-10%) and formic acid (0.05%) were added to the supercritical carbon dioxide/MeOH mobile phase. Beside the composition of the mobile phase, the nature of the make-up solvent for interfacing SFC with MS was also evaluated. Compared to reversed phase liquid chromatography, the SFC approach showed higher resolution and shorter running time. The developed SFC-MS methods were successfully applied to the separation and identification of TSs present in Ilex latifolia Thunb., Panax quinquefolius L. and Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer. These results suggest that this SFC-MS approach could be employed as a useful tool for the quality assessment of natural products containing TSs as active components.

Selective Profiling of Saponins from Gypsophila trichotoma Wend. by HILIC Separation and HRMS Detection

“…HILIC is an orthogonal chromatographic version of the reversed phase mode and two‐dimensional chromatography combining both of them has been applied for analytical (Xing et al ., ) and preparative (Guo et al ., ) separations of saponins. In addition, modern hyphenated techniques combining better resolved and faster chromatography with mass spectrometric detection (MS, MS/MS and HRMS) allow fairly rapid dereplication, or de novo‐ identification, albeit tentative pending more rigorous structural elucidation studies of saponins (Xing et al ., ; Zhang et al ., ; Huang et al, ).…”

“…Advantages of the supercritical fluid chromatography (Huang et al ., ) and especially hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) (Guo et al ., ) have been described for saponins separation. They were more selective, in comparison with the widely used reverse phase mode, allowing separation and isolation of isomers.…”

Simultaneous analysis of nucleobases, nucleosides and ginsenosides in ginseng extracts using supercritical fluid chromatography coupled with single quadrupole mass spectrometry

“…Although ELSD is a sensitive and simple detection system, structural information on ginsenosides could not be obtained simultaneously. Our preliminary study showed the potential of SFC-MS for the analysis of ginsenosides from ginseng extracts [26]. Besides, M. Ashraf-Khorassani reported the separation of four water-soluble nucleobases (thymine, uracil, adenine, and cytosine) using SFC-UV on packed columns with diol, cyanopropyl, and 2-ethyl pyridine bonded silica as stationary phases, which demonstrated the potential of SFC for the analysis of these polar compounds [27].…”

“…Some analyses of nucleobases, nucleosides [28][29][30] and ginsenosides [31][32][33] in herbal medicines were already reported. Yet, only a few papers dealt with the analysis of these compounds by SFC [25][26][27].…”

“…SFC has also showed great potential for the separation of active components in natural products [23]. So far, only a few SFC applications have been developed for the separation of ginsenosides or nucleobases and nucleosides [24][25][26][27]. Li et al reported the determination of panaxadiol and panaxatriol in ginseng by capillary SFC-UV [24].…”