Simultaneous Determination of Wogonin, Scutellarin, Baicalin, and Baicalein in Extracts from Scutellariae Baicalensis by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Scutellariae baicalensis is one of the most popular herb in the traditional Chinese medicine. It is used for the treatment of inflammatory process, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, and also in the treatment of bacterial and virus infections because of such active components as wogonin, scutellarin, baicalin, and baicalein, which are contained in this herb. A sensitive and selective method of the simultaneous determination of these compounds in the extracts from plant raw materials using high-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry with electrospray ionization was developed. The proposed method has been successfully tested on commercially available samples of the Scutellariae baicalensis root. Analysis of samples was carried out using reversed-phase chromatography with an Acclaim RSLC C18 adsorbent. Using multiple reactions monitoring the following limits of detection were achieved: 1 ng/mL for wogonin and baicalin, 3 ng mL^–1 for scutellarin, and 4 ng mL^–1 for baicalein. It was found that the calibration curve was linear in the concentration range 20 ng mL^–1 and 2000 ng mL^–1 for scutellarin and 20 ng mL^–1 and 500 ng mL^–1 for wogonin, baicalin, and baicalein.