Influence of drying process on furostanoside and spirostanoside profiles of Paridis Rhizoma by combination of HPLC, UPLC and UPLC-QTOF-MS/MS analyses

Abstract Drying method is one of the important factors affecting quality of traditional Chinese medicine. To study the effect of shaded drying and hot air drying on steroidal saponins of Paridis Rhizoma (PR), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis was used to investigate the difference of Paris polyphylla var. chinensis (PPC) samples treated by different methods, and then, a rapid and reliable ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) method was established to quantitatively analyze the content change of ten steroidal saponins. Hot air drying at 50 ℃ could obviously improve the content of polyphyllin Ⅶ, 17-hydroxygracillin and polyphyllin H, which were major steroidal saponins in PPC. Based on that, the main component changes induced by different drying methods were further analyzed using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-QTOF-MS/MS), and the structural identification of varied components revealed that hot air drying could promote the transformation of proto-pennogenyl glycosides to pennogenyl glycosides. This phenomenon was also found in other plants of genus Paris rich in diosgenyl glycosides. The present study provided a useful method for improving quality of PR and valuable information for TCM containing steroidal saponins.