Chemical Fingerprint and Metabolic Profile Analysis of Tianshu Tablets by Ultra-High Performance Liquid Chromatography/Quadrupole-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry

In recent years, the chemical fingerprinting of traditional Chinese medicines and the metabolites in these compounds has been a hot topic. In the present study, the chemical fingerprint of Tianshu tablets (TST) and the metabolic characteristics of compounds in rats after intragastric administration were studied by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-time of flight mass spectrometry (UPLC/Q-TOF MS). In a preliminary study, 77 chemical components in TST were determined by comparison with retention times, accurate molecular mass, and characteristic fragment ions of the known compounds in the literature and some well-known compounds were analyzed in detail, and the fragmentation pathways for parishins B, gastrodin A, and cnidilide or neocnilide were specifically analyzed. After intragastric administration of TST (4 g/kg) to rats, a total of 61 compounds were detected in plasma samples, including 7 prototypes and 54 metabolites. After further analysis, it was found that these metabolites were subjected to glucuronidation, sulfation, methylation, hydroxylation, dehydrogenation, or mixed metabolic processes. Hydroxylation and glucuronidation were finally confirmed as the main metabolic pathways. This is the first research on the chemical fingerprint and metabolites of TST, which lays a foundation for further investigation of TST.