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.