Abstract: AIM: To establish a liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS) method for determination the effective components in Quan Tianma capsule. METHODS: A Kromasil C₁₈ column (150 mm×2.00 mm, 3.5 μm) was used as the analytical column,while a mixture of acetonitrile and ammonium chloride solution was used as the mobile phase.The molecules [M+Cl] - at m/z 321 was used, and the injection volume was 10 μL. RESULTS: There was a good linear relationship in the range of 0.05- 2.00 μg/mL for gastrodin (r=0.9990) , the average recovery rate was 97.76%(RSD was 1.44%). CONCLUSION: The method is accurate, convenient, and can be used for the quantitative analysis of Tianma capsule. Mass spectrogram technology will be used for the effective components identification and quality control of the commonly used drugs in clinic.

Key words: Liquid chromatographic-electrospray ionization mass spectrometric method, Quan Tianma capsule, Gastrodine