Chemical profiling of Artemisia rupestris using HPLC-IT-TOF-MS

Abstract

Artemisia rupestris is widely used as a folk medicine of Uygur and Kazak with blood and detoxification, deaccumulation stagnation, clearing heat digestion and other effects. Currently, the chemical profile of A. rupestris has not been disclosed, resulting in a great obstacle for the systematic clarification of the efficacy materials and the quality evaluations. In this paper, HPLC-IT-TOF-MS was deployed to characterize the chemical constituents in A. rupestris. As a result, a total of 124 compounds were detected in 75% ethanol extract of A. rupestris. By comparing with the reference compounds, seven chlorogenic acids, and four flavonoids as well as one sesquiterpenoid were definitely identified. Moreover, twenty sesquiterpenes, sixty-five flavonoids and twenty-three chlorogenic acids were preliminarily identified by matching MS/MS spectral information with literature data and applying those empirical mass spectrometric cracking rules. In current study, the chemical composition of A. rupestris was profiled in depth, and the findings are envisioned to provide a theoretical basis for the further studies of this well-known herbal medicine, such as efficacy material characterization and quality assessment.