Introduction to hyphenated techniques and their applications in pharmacy

The hyphenated technique is developed from the coupling of a separation technique and an on-line spectroscopic detection technology. The remarkable improvements in hyphenated analytical methods over the last two decades have significantly broadened their applications in the analysis of biomaterials, especially natural products. In this article, recent advances in the applications of various hyphenated techniques, e.g., GC-MS, LC-MS, LC-FTIR, LC-NMR, CE-MS, etc. in the context of pre-isolation analyses of crude extracts or fraction from various natural sources, isolation and on-line detection of natural products, chemotaxonomic studies, chemical fingerprinting, quality control of herbal products, dereplication of natural products, and metabolomic studies are discussed with appropriate examples.