Separation Methods for Toxic Components in Traditional Chinese Medicines

Abstract

Traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) with many unique functions for treating diseases have attracted the interest of people worldwide. They have been popularly utilized for therapy and health promotion in most Asian countries and even in many European and North American countries. However, it should be clearly noted that TCMs are mixtures with complicated composition usually containing hundreds, even thousands of chemically different constituents, and it is the multiple constituents that work synthetically to determine the ultimate effect of a formula of TCM. Meanwhile, some components with toxicity in some TCMs, having various negative effects on different parts of body, may do serious harm to people's health; such harm in particular requires our attention. In this article, applications of different chromatographic and electrophoretic techniques in the analysis of toxic components in TCMs in recent decades have been comprehensively reviewed and some hyphenated procedures (combinations of two kinds of measurement) applied in this field are also summarized.

Analysis of multiple constituents in a Chinese herbal preparation Shuang-Huang-Lian oral liquid by HPLC-DAD-ESI-MSn

“…However, the chemical components of TCM still remained unclear since they are a complex mixture containing hundreds of different chemical constituents [4], which hindered the use of TCM in clinical practice and retarded the process of TCM modernization. According to the Chinese medical theory, the effects of herbal medicine attributed to the combination of the multiple components in the herbs.…”

Statistical mixture design optimization of extraction media and mobile phase compositions for the characterization of green tea

“…6). Equation (9) shows that this owes to a highly significant binary synergic effect between ethanol and dichloromethane, 40.23 € 4.07. Table 1 shows that extraction solutions 6 (50, 0, 50) and 10 (16, 16, 67) exhibit 21 and 22 peaks with this mobile phase composition.…”

“…Methods using gradient elution HPLC with RP columns (RP-HPLC) have been applied for the analysis of multiple constituents present in medicinal plants and herbal preparation [9][10][11][12]. In general, they can be used to analyze almost all compounds in herbal medicines through suitable optimized procedures involving the composition of mobile phase, pH, and analytical columns [9].…”

“…In general, they can be used to analyze almost all compounds in herbal medicines through suitable optimized procedures involving the composition of mobile phase, pH, and analytical columns [9].…”

Recent developments in qualitative and quantitative analysis of phytochemical constituents and their metabolites using liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry

“…From the perspective of separation, the modern chromatographic methods are highly efficient in the analysis of natural products [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. A variety of chromatographic techniques have been employed including thin layer chromatography (TLC) [17], gas chromatography (GC) [18], capillary electrophoresis (CE) [19,20] and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) [21].…”