Recent developments and emerging trends of mass spectrometry for herbal ingredients analysis

Herbal preparation has recently increased health awareness and its efficacy is brought about by the multi-constituents. Therefore, the application of mass spectrometry (MS) in herbal preparation has been dramatically growing due to the improved detection capabilities. It offered high sensitivity, high-throughput and selectivity, has better accuracy, and can be utilized to quantitative, qualitative and imaging. High-throughput screening method integrated with MS platform is an excellent tool to analyze the multi-components of herbal preparation in the post-genomic era. For providing an up-to-date overview of MS application on the HM-derived compounds, the papers published in the latest years involving quantitative and qualitative analysis of chemical constituents and MS platform integrated with high-throughput screening method are summarized in this review. Examples of the application of MS in the HM sciences focusing on chemical analysis are highlighted, and new developments and future prospects are also highlighted.