Simultaneous Determination of Iridoid Glycosides, Phenylpropanoid Glycosides, Organic Acids, Nucleosides and Amino Acids in Scrophulariae Radix Processed by Different Processing Methods by HPLC-QTRAP-MS/MS

Scrophulariae Radix is one of the widely used traditional Chinese medicines. In this study, a high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole-linear ion trap mass spectrometry method was established for the simultaneous determination of multiple bioactive constituents including four iridoid glycosides, two phenylpropanoid glycosides, six organic acids, 11 nucleosides and 16 amino acids in Scrophulariae Radix. The validated method was used to analyze nine Scrophulariae Radix samples processed by different processing methods. In addition, Grey relational analysis and DTOPSIS were used to evaluate the samples according to the content of 39 ayalytes. The results showed that the quality of Scrophulariae Radix processed by cutting into slices, sun drying and "sweating" methods were better. All the results proved that the developed method was available and could be used to evaluate the quality of Scrophulariae Radix.