Untargeted Metabolomics Profiling and Global Semi-quantitation of a Prescription Chinese Herbal Medicine Formula Yinqiaosan Using UPLC-QTOF-MS with a Single Exogenous Reference Internal Standard

Abstract

Abstract Yinqiaosan is a classic Chinese herbal medicine formula that has been used to treat various bacterial and viral infections by Chinese medicine doctors for over two centuries. In this work, we developed a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative method for identification, quantitation, and quality assessment of chemical constituents of Yinqiaosan formula in four different preparation forms (i.e., decoction, granule, pill, and tablet), which employed ultra-performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry with a single exogenous reference internal standard for untargeted metabolomics profiling and global semiquantitative analysis. The use of a single exogenous reference internal standard permitted not only qualitative and quantitative analyses of multiple herbal components in a single instrument run, but also cross-comparison of chemical contents in between all four Yinqiaosan preparation forms. The acquired mass chromatograms were analyzed, quantitated, and compared using multivariate data analysis for similarities and differences of chemical constituents in four Yinqiaosan preparation forms. For the first time, we were able to identify over 100 chemical constituents from each preparation form using the available database. Among the 49 commonly identified compounds in the 4 Yinqiaosan preparation forms, 16 have been reported to have pharmacological activities, which may be used in a network pharmacology study of Yinqiaosan for exploring the underlying mechanism of the herbal formula.