Quality tracing evaluation strategies of compatible materials in Aconitum proprietary Chinese medicines

The proprietary Chinese medicine (PCM) has become a significant supplement of modern medicine. Nevertheless, the absence of quality control standard of compatible materials in PCM has led to serious adulteration, which has an extremely bad effect on safety of drug use and clinical efficacy. Here, a quality tracing evaluation strategy of compatible materials in 32 Aconitum proprietary Chinese medicines (APCMs) was established, including data normalization, model development, model verification, and unknown prescription cracking. The model was delimited based on the weighted content of total 9 key alkaloids in 24 APCMs, which were 5.65-57.10 μg/g for extract medicines and 42.62-380.61 μg/g for powder medicines. Three newly published commercial APCMs, including Wangbi Tablet, Wangbi Granule, and Fengshigutong Capsule, were used to verify its reliability and the results proved to be positive. Moreover, a novel prescription cracking approach was proposed to decode the content of each material in five unknown prescriptions including Yaoxitong Capsule, Tongrendahuoluo Pill, Xinbao Pill, Dahuoluo Capsule, and Mugua Pill. Ultimately, the single or two compatible Aconitum materials in APCMs was successfully decoded and the processed level of the materials were effectively judged. This study for the first time established a practical strategy for supervision and cracking of compatible materials in PCMs and is of great significance to improve the quality control of PCMs.

Limitation standard of toxic aconitines in Aconitum proprietary Chinese medicines using on-line extraction electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

Development of rapid analytical methods and establishment of toxic component limitation standards are of great importance in quality control of traditional Chinese medicine. Herein, an on-line extraction electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (oEESI-MS) coupled with a novel whole process integral quantification strategy was developed and applied to direct determination of nine key aconitine-type alkaloids in 20 Aconitum proprietary Chinese medicines (APCMs). Multi-type dosage forms (e.g., tablets, capsules, pills, granules, and liquid preparation) of APCM could be determined directly with excellent versatility. The strategy has the characteristics of high throughput, good tolerance of matrix interference, small amount of sample (∼0.5 mg) and reagent (∼240 μL) consumption, and short analysis time for single sample (<15 min). The results were proved to be credible by high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, respectively. Moreover, the limitation standard for the toxic aconitines in 20 APCMs was established based on the holistic weight toxicity (HWT) evaluation and the Chinese Pharmacopoeia severally, and turned out that HWT-based toxicity evaluation results were closer to the real clinical applications. Hence, a more accurate and reliable APCM toxicity limitation was established and expected to play an important guiding role in clinics. The current study extended the power of ambient MS as a method for the direct quantification of molecules in complex samples, which is commonly required in pharmaceutical analysis, food safety control, public security, and many other disciplines.