A practical method for rapid discrimination of constituents in Psoraleae Fructus by UPLC-Q-Orbitrap MS

Psoraleae Fructus (PF) is one of the most frequently used traditional Chinese medicine, which has good efficacy in warming kidney to activate yang, promoting inspiration to relieve asthma and warming spleen to stop diarrhea. However, the chemical composition of PF is complex, which makes it difficult to determine its active and toxic components. In order to rapidly classify and identify the chemical components of the extracts from PF, this research was processed with CNKI, PubMed, and PubChem databases and data post-processing technique basing on ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography quadrupole orbitrap mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q-Orbitrap MS) technique. Finally, 73 chemical components were discriminated, including 44 flavonoids, 18 coumarins, and 11 terpenoids, with the cleavage rules of each chemical component summarized. This study established a UPLC-Q-Orbitrap MS method for the separation and discrimination of the chemical constituents of PF, which can lay a foundation for the further study of its medicinal substances and quality control.