Dynamic Changes of Eight Bioactive Constituents in Magnoliae Officinalis Cortex Based on UFLC-QTRAP-MS/MS Combined with Grey Relational Analysis

Abstract

Background: Magnoliae Officinalis Cortex is a well-known traditional Chinese herbal medicine with vast clinical consumption owing to its positive effects. However, little attention has been devoted to analyzing the dynamic changes of the chemical constituents of Magnoliae Officinalis Cortex in different growth periods. Methods: In this study, all analyses were performed on UFLC -20ADXR system and a SynergiTM Hydro-RP 100 Å column (100 mm×2.0 mm, 2.5µm). The mobile phase consisted of water containing 0.1% formic acid (A) and acetonitrile containing 0.1% formic acid (B). The target constituents, including two lignans, two alkaloids, two flavonoids, one phenylpropanoid glycoside, and one organic acid, were analyzed in both positive and negative ion modes with accurate and sensitive multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. Results: The correlation coefficients of all the calibration curves were higher than 0.9992. Relative standard deviations of intra- and inter-day precisions of the eight analytes were all lower than 4.01% and the recoveries were in the range from 98.62% to 102.46%. Grey relational analysis was performed to evaluate the samples according to the contents of 8 constituents. The results showed that the quality of Magnoliae Officinalis Cortex collected at traditional harvest time was much better, and the higher the age, the better the quality. Conclusion: The proposed method is useful for the assessment on the quality of Magnoliae Officinalis Cortex, and this study provides the basis for exploring the quality forming mechanism of Magnoliae Officinalis Cortex medicinal materials and choosing the suitable harvesting period.