Study on the Adulteration of Ophiopogonis Radix in Shenmai Granules Based on UPLC-MS/MS

OBJECTIVE To establish an UPLC-MS/MS method for the adulteration of Ophiopogonis Radix in Shenmai Granules to investigate whether there was a phenomenon of using Liriopes Radix to replace Ophiopogonis Radix in the production enterprise.

METHODS The characteristic components liriope muscari baily saponins C and liriopesides B were used as the detection index of Liriopes Radix. Separation was performed on a Shimadzu Shim-pack gist C₁₈(2.1 mm×100 mm, 2 μm) column with a gradient elution of acetonitrile-0.1% formic acid at the flow rate of 0.3 mL·min⁻¹ and a column temperature of 40 ℃. The detection mode was multi reaction monitoring in electrospray positive ion source(ESI⁺).

RESULTS Liriope muscari baily saponins C and liriopesides B showed good linearity in the range of 3.290–315.8, 2.390–305.9 ng·mL⁻¹, with the correlation coefficients ≥0.9996, and the recoveries of 105.3% and 100.6%, and the RSDs of instrument precision, reproducibility, and stability were less than 3.0%. The 85 batches of Shenmai Granules contained 8 batches of Liriopes Radix with the detection rate of 9.4%.

CONCLUSION The established method is simple, rapid, accurate and exclusive, and can be used to screen the adulteration of Ophiopogonis Radix in Shenmai granules.