Recent advances on HPLC/MS in medicinal plant analysis

With gaining popularity of herbal remedies worldwide, the need of assuring safety and efficacy of these products increases as well. By nature they are complex matrices, comprising a multitude of compounds, which are prone to variation due to environmental factors and manufacturing conditions. Furthermore, many traditional preparations compose of multiple herbs, so that only highly selective, sensitive and versatile analytical techniques will be suitable for quality control purposes. By hyphenating high performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry (LC–MS) these high demands are fulfilled, providing the user with a multitude of technical options and applications. This review intends to reflect the impact of LC–MS for medicinal plant analysis focusing on most relevant reports published within the last five years. Commenced by introductory remarks to the different MS approaches most commonly used (e.g. ion trap and time of flight mass analyzers, fragmentation and ionization modes), respective LC–MS applications on the analysis of natural products in medicinal plants, commercial products and biological samples are presented. Methodological aspects like stationary and mobile phase selection or MS settings are discussed, and advantages or limitations of the described techniques are highlighted.