Content determination of seventeen components in Dragon's Blood and Chinese Dragon's Blood based on multiple reaction monitoring tandem mass spectrometry

To effectively determine the content of characteristic components in imported Dragon's Blood (DB) and domestic Chinese Dragon's Blood (CDB), this study established a multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) method based on ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole-linear ion trap mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-Trap-MS). Chromatographic separation was achieved using an ACQUITY UPLC BEH C₁₈ column (2.1 mm × 100 mm, 1.7 μm) at 30 ℃ with a mobile phase consisting of 0.1% formic acid aqueous solution and acetonitrile at a flow rate of 0.3 mL·min^-1 under gradient elution. The method successfully separated and quantified six characteristic components in DB and eleven in CDB within 22 minutes. The developed approach demonstrated excellent specificity, enabling rapid and efficient determination of 17 components. All analytes exhibited strong linearity (R² > 0.99), and the average recovery rate was 93.58%-105.82%. Results revealed that imported Dragon's Blood contained higher levels of dracorhodin, (2S)-5-methoxyflavan-7-ol and (2S)-5-methoxy-6-methylflavan-7-ol, while domestic Chinese Dragon's Blood was rich in loureirin B, loureirin D and pterostilbene, albeit with significant variations among different batches. These findings provide critical references for quality control and standardization of DB and CDB, as well as the insights for distinguishing similar traditional Chinese medicines.