Quality evaluation of Semen Platycladi samples of different origins by internal extractive electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

Abstract

Semen Platycladi is a widely used natural product in Chinese medicine with pharmacological effects such as anti-arteriosclerosis, sleep improvement, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory. The quality of Semen Platycladi is fundamentally important for its therapeutic use. However, the tedious sample pretreatment required by the currently available methods poses great challenge to the high throughput analysis and evaluation of the quality of Semen Platycladi. Here we establish a high-throughput analysis platform for evaluating the quality of various Semen Platycladi samples using Internal Extractive Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry (iEESI-MS). The fatty acids including linoleic acid, linolenic acid, arachidonic acid, stearic acid and palmitic acid, known as one of the major ingredients in Semen Platycladi, were directly quantified in the range of 0.001–100.00 μg mg⁻¹ (R² > 0.995) using raw samples of different origins, with limits of detection of 0.02–0.04 μg mg⁻¹, limits of quantification of 0.07–0.14 μg mg⁻¹, recovery rate of 89.5–102.0%, and relative standard deviation of repeatability (n = 9) of 0.51–3.88%, respectively. The data revealed that these five fatty acids were the main differential compounds, which could be used to differentiate the samples that originated from Hebei, Shandong and Henan provinces. Experimental results demonstrated that iEESI-MS could be a useful platform for fast quality analysis of Semen Platycladi, and thus showing advanced applications in natural product analysis, drug discovery and related fields.