Hemostatic chemical constituents from natural medicine Toddalia asiatica root bark by LC-ESI Q-TOF MS(E)

BACKGROUND: Toddalia asiatica root bark as an effective hemostatic natural medicine or Chinese materia medica was applied in China for long history, its complex drug action mechanisms and unclear substance basis have been constraining the development of this drug. RESULTS: An intelligentized strategy by LC-ESI Q-TOF MS(E) was presented in this study for rapid identification of hemostatic chemical constituents from this natural medicine. Chromatographic separation was performed on a C18 column (150 mm × 2.1 mm, 1.8 μm), the MS(E) data in both negative and positive ion modes were acquired to record the high-accuracy MS and MS/MS data of all precursor ions. To reduce the false positive identifications, structural confirmation was conducted by comparison with the isolated reference standards (t(R) and MS, MS/MS data) or matching with natural product databases. Bioassay-guided fractionation of the extract of T. asiatica root bark was also carried out. CONCLUSIONS: As a consequence, 31 natural compounds in T. asiatica root bark got putatively characterized. There were four main coumarins, isopimpinellin (Cp.23), pimpinellin (Cp.24), coumurrayin (Cp.30) and phellopterin (Cp.34) isolated and identified from T. asiatica root bark. The present study provided candidate strategy that helps to effectively identify the primary natural compounds of TCM or other complex natural medicines, and then promote development and application of natural medicines and their medicinal resources.