Current mass spectrometry approaches and challenges for the bioanalysis of traditional Chinese medicines

Traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) are gaining more and more attentions all over the world. The focus of TCMs researches were gradually shifted from chemical research to the combination study of chemical and life sciences. However, obtaining precise information of TCMs process in vivo or in vitro is still a bottleneck in bioanalysis of TCMs for their chemical composition complexity. This paper reviewed the recent analytical methods especially mass spectrometry technology in the bioanalysis of TCMs, and data processing techniques in the qualitative and quantitative analyses of metabolite of TCMs. Additionally, the difficulties encountered in the analyzing biological samples in TCMs and the solutions to these problems have been mentioned.