Determination of total ginsenosides in ginseng extracts using charged aerosol detection with post-column compensation...

Variation in structure-related components in plant products prompted the trend to establish methods, using multiple or total analog analysis, for their effective quality control. However, the general use of routine quality control is restricted by the limited availability of reference substances. Using an easily available single marker as a reference standard to determine multiple or total analogs should be a practical option.

In this study, the Ultra-HPLC method was used for the baseline separation of the main components in ginseng extracts. Using a plant chemical component database, ginsenosides in ginseng extracts were identified by Ultra-HPLC-MS analysis. The charged aerosol detection (CAD) system with post-column compensation of the gradient generates a similar response for identical amounts of different analytes, and thus, the content of each ginsenoside in ginseng extracts was determined by comparing the analyte peak area with the reference standard (determination of total analogs by single marker, DTSM). The total ginsenoside content was determined by the summation of reference standard and other ginsenoside components.

The results showed that DTSM approaches were available for the determination of total ginsenosides in a high purity ginseng extract because of the removal of impurities. In contrast, DTSM approaches might be suitable for determination of multiple ginsenosides without interference from impurities in the crude ginseng extract.

Future practical studies similar to the present study should be conducted to verify that DTSM approaches based on CAD with post-column inverse gradient for uniform response are ideal for the quality control of plant products.