title: Rapid determination of flavonoids in licorice and comparison of three licorice species.
abstract: A simple, sensitive and fast method for the simultaneous quantitation of 15 flavonoids in licorice based on an ultra high performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole electrospray tandem mass spectrometry had been established and validated in this study. The analysis was performed on an ACQUITY HSS T3 column with gradient elution using a mobile phase consisted of A (0.1% formic acid in water)/B (acetonitrile) at a flow rate of 0.4 mL/min. Satisfactory separation of these compounds was obtained in less than 9 min. All calibration curves showed good linearity (r(2) = 0.9940) during the test ranges. The precision, repeatability, accuracy, limit of detection and limit of quantification were also fully investigated. The validated method was successfully applied for the simultaneous quantitation of 15 flavonoids in 106 licorice samples which contained 83 batches of G. uralensis, 14 batches of G. glabra and 9 batches of G. inflata. Furthermore, multivariate statistical analysis (using principal components analysis) was performed to classify the samples based on the contents of the 15 analyzed compounds. The results showed that all of these licorice samples were rich in flavonoids, although their contents were obviously various, and the proposed method could serve as a prerequisite for quality control of licorice products.
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization, and National and Local Collaborative Engineering Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization and Formulae Innovative Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Zhenhua
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: zhu
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization, and National and Local Collaborative Engineering Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization and Formulae Innovative Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Weiwei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Tao
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization, and National and Local Collaborative Engineering Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization and Formulae Innovative Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Jianping
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization, and National and Local Collaborative Engineering Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization and Formulae Innovative Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Sheng
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization, and National and Local Collaborative Engineering Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization and Formulae Innovative Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Dawei
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization, and National and Local Collaborative Engineering Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization and Formulae Innovative Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Erxin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Shang
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization, and National and Local Collaborative Engineering Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization and Formulae Innovative Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Shulan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Su
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization, and National and Local Collaborative Engineering Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization and Formulae Innovative Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Jin-ao
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Duan
mesh_terms: D005419:Flavonoids / Q000032:analysis*; D006035:Glycyrrhiza / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification
chemical_list: D005419:Flavonoids
keywords: Flavonoids; Glycyrrhiza glabra; Glycyrrhiza inflata; Glycyrrhiza uralensis; Licorice