Abstract
Licorice, Glycyrrhizae Radix is widely used as a herbal medicines and a dietary supplements in East Asia. We employed high performance liquid chromatography electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry to determine liquiritin and glycyrrhizin in the Glycyrrhizae Radix. Liquiritin and glycyrrhizin in Glycyrrhizae Radix were ionized by positive ion pneumatically assisted electrospray and detected by HPLC-MS/MS in the multiple-reaction monitoring (MRM) mode using precursor ${\rightarrow}$ product ion combinations at m/z $436.2{\rightarrow}257.0$ and $823.4{\rightarrow}453.4$, respectively. The assay had a calibration range from 10 to 3,000 ng/mL. The limits of detection (LOD) of the liquiritin and glycyrrhizin were 0.4 ng/mL and 0.01 ng/mL, respectively. The reproducibility and repeatability (relative standard deviation) at different analyte concentrations varied from 103 to 113 % and 0.95 to 1.8 %, respectively. According to the above results, HPLC-MS/MS method permits assignment of tentative structures such as liquiritin and glycyrrhizin in the Glycyrrhizae Radix.
한약과 기능성식품으로 널리 활용되는 감초의 지표물질인 glycyrrhizin과 liquiritin을 HPLC-MS/MS 로 정성, 정량분석을 실시하였다. 두 가지 지표성분 모두 positive ion mode에서 검출이 가능하였고, precursor ion과 product ion을 조합한 multiple-reaction monitoring (MRM) mode에서 liquiritin은 m/z $436.2{\rightarrow}257.0$로 관찰되었고, glycyrrhizin은 m/z $823.4{\rightarrow}453.4$ 로 각각 검지되었다. 감초 물 추출물을 분무건조기로 건조한 분말에서 glycyrrhizin의 경우 5.8%, liquiritin의 경우 2.3% 각각 함유되어 있었다. 회수율은 103-113%였고, 일간, 일내 정밀도 실험에서 상대표준편차는 0.95-1.8% 였다. 본 실험 조건에서 liquiritin과 glycyrrhizin의 검출한계는 각각 0.4 ng/mL과 0.01 ng/mL 이었다.