Systematic analysis of the metabolites of Roukou Wuwei pills by ultra high performance liquid chromatography with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry after oral administration to rats.

Roukou Wuwei pills is one of the most commonly used Mongolian medicinal prescriptions and historically used for the treatment of depression. This research aimed to illustrate the metabolic characteristic of Roukou Wuwei pills in vivo. To address this objective, an ultra high performance liquid chromatography with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry method based metabonomics approach was used to detect and analyze the metabolites of Roukou Wuwei pills. The chromatographic separation was completed on an Agilent SB-C18 column (1.8 μm, 2.1 × 50 mm) with a gradient elution system (acetonitrile and 0.1% formic acid-water). An electrospray ionization was operated in a full-scan mode at m/z 100 - 1000. The data was collected in positive and negative ion modes. The Masslynx 4.1 and SIMCA-P 13.0 software were used to analyze the MS data and select the potential metabolites by using an orthogonal partial least-squares discriminant analysis which was applied to investigate the differences between the blank and drug groups in bio-samples of rats. Finally, totally 87 metabolites were detected based on their MS/MS data. Among them, 69 metabolites are potential new compounds. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.