Major bioactive phenolics in Bergenia species from the Indian Himalayan region: Method development, validation and quantitative estimation using UHPLC-QqQ(LIT)-MS/MS

Bergenia species are important medicinal plants used in indigenous systems of medicine for their antilithiatic and diuretic properties. An ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to hybrid linear ion trap triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QqQ(LIT)-MS/MS) method has been developed and validated for the estimation of quantitative variation of eight major bioactive phenolics in the rhizomes (150 samples) of four species of this herb, Bergenia (B. ciliata, B. ligulata, B. purpurascens and B. stracheyi). Chromatographic separation was obtained on a Waters ACQUITY UPLC(TM) BEH (ethylene bridged hybrid) C(18) column with a mobile phase consisting of 0.1% (v/v) formic acid aqueous solution and acetonitrile under a gradient elution manner. A hybrid linear ion trap triple quadrupole mass spectrometer was operated in negative electrospray ionization mode with multiple reactions monitoring for detection and quantification of the eight compounds. The validated method demonstrated good linearity (r(2) ≥ 0.9991), precision (RSD ≤ 1.87%) and accuracy (95.16–102.11%, RSD ≤ 1.83%) for all reference analytes. The quantitative results revealed that B. ligulata contains the highest amount of the major active marker-bergenin. The results also suggest that sensitive UHPLC-QqQ(LIT)-MS/MS method, a sensitive, accurate and convenient one, could be helpful in identification of potential accession(s), rapid quality control and establishing authenticity of Bergenia species as raw material for pharmaceutical industries.