CE and CE-MS in Quality Control of Chinese Medicines

Analysis of active components or dubious adulterants in Chinese medicines is often somewhat problematic due to the highly complex nature of the sample matrices, which makes the identification of individual constituents extremely challenging. Capillary electrophoresis (CE) includes different separation modes and detections, allowing many versatile applications in the analysis and quality control of Chinese medicines. The use of mass spectrometry (MS) as an advanced detection technique is inevitable in the evolution of various current separation methods, which is particularly true for a CE separation. The addition of MS detection can provide specific and more sensitive identification of the analytes in such complex and challenging matrices. Combined with the development of MS detection and CE separation techniques, the new configuration forms a powerful analytical tool for the speedy and accurate identification and quantification of various constituents in Chinese medicines. In order to provide some substantial evidence to consider using CE as an alternative method for Chinese medicine analyses, this chapter covers some essential theoretical aspects of CE separation and different detection methodologies, with specific emphasis on CE-MS. Although by no means comprehensive, it is intended to provide a brief description of CE and CE-MS techniques, which is related to the consideration of using these analytical approaches as promising techniques for Chinese medicine analyses. Succinctly, this chapter is devoted to providing some details of CE and CE-MS method developments and further applications of the developed methods in Chinese medicine analyses. The most critical applications of CE and CE-MS cited in ISI Web of Science and publisher databases are presented in a tabular format. The readers can, therefore rapidly find the existing CE and CE-MS analytical techniques in the Chinese medicine field. Furthermore, on the basis of previous studies, it can be concluded that the CE analytical approach has great potential to be used for routine quality control of Chinese medicines. Finally, the main challenges and future prospects for a widespread application of CE and CE-MS in the Chinese medicine industry are discussed.