Quantitative determination of four diterpenoids in Radix Salviae Miltiorrhizae using LC-MS-MS

An HPLC-ESI-MS-MS method has been developed for the quantitative determination of four diterpenoids, dihydrotanshinone I, cryptotanshinone, tanshinone I, and tanshinone IIA in Radix Salviae Miltiorrhizae (RSM, the root of Salvia miltiorrhiza BGE.). The diterpenoids were chromatographically separated on a C18 HPLC column, and the quantification of these diterpenoids was based on the fragments of [M+H]⁺ under collision-activated conditions and in Selected Reaction Monitioring (SRM) mode. The quantitative method was validated, and the mean recovery rates from fortified samples (n=5) of dihydrotanshinone I, cryptotanshinone, tanshinone I, and tanshinone UA were 95.0%, 97.2%, 93.1%, and 95.9% with variation coefficient of 6.0%, 4.3%, 3.7%, and 4.2%, respectively. The established method was successfully applied to the quality assessment of seven batches of RSM samples collected from different regions of China.