Abstract:

An ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UPLC-QQQMS)
with dynamic multiple reaction mode was developed to simultaneously quantify 8 constituents including 22-hydroxyglycyrrhetinic
acid, 3-epi-glycyrrhetinic acid, glycyrrhetinic acid, glycyrrhizic acid, liquiritin, glycycoumarin, formononetin
and isoglycyrol in Glycyrrhiza uralensis. Cholic acid and abrusin 2”-O-β-apioside were used as the internal standards for
triterpenoid and phenolic components, respectively. The internal standards were added to methanol before being used to
extract samples. The separation was performed on an Agilent ZORBAX RRHD Eclipse Plus C18 column (50 mm × 2.1 mm,
1.8 μm) with methanol-0.1% formic acid as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.4 mL/min. As a result, the linear ranges of
22-hydroxy-glycyrrhetinic acid, 3-epi-glycyrrhetinic acid, glycyrrhetinic acid, glycyrrhizic acid, liquiritin, formononetin,
isoglycyrol and glycycoumarin were 0.048 8–12.500 0, 0.048 8–12.500 0, 0.012 2–12.500 0, 0.048 8–50.000 0, 0.048 8–
50.000 0, 0.012 2–12.500 0, 0.012 2–15.000 0 and 0.195 2–12.500 0 μg/mL, respectively, with correlation coefficients higher than
0.99. The average recovery rate of the developed method ranged from 97.2% to113.0% and the intra-day and inter-day relative
standard deviations (RSDs) were 2.63%–4.47% and 1.75%–3.72%, respectively. This method is sensitive, simple, fast, and
accurate, and can be used for the quality control of different parts of Glycyrrhiza uralensis and related food products.

Key words: Glycyrrhiza uralensis, different parts of Glycyrrhiza uralensis, ultra-high-performance liquid chromatographytriple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UPLC-QQQMS), simultaneous determination