Simultaneous determination of four gingerol components in ginger extracts by a single marker (QAMS) using a new calculation of relative correction factor

The lack of standard substances is a bottleneck for quality control in traditional and alternative medicine. Development of the ultra high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole liquid-mass tandem system (UPLC-MS/MS) approaches combined with single standard for quantitative analysis of multi-component system (QAMS) allowed determination of several gingerol components in ginger extracts by implementation of the relative response factors (RRFs). Four gingerol components of 6-gingerol, 8-gingerol, 10-gingerol and 6-Shogaol were selected as analytes to evaluate the quality by UPLC-MS/MS. A new relative response factors (nRRF, f ox ) were established by calculating the ratio of the logarithm of the response and the injection concentration of the analytes to the internal reference. The contents of four analytes in ginger extracts were determined by the single marker of nonivamide used as the internal reference which did not exist in the sample and was similar to gingerol in structure and performance. The method was evaluated by a comparison of the quantitative results between the external standard method (ESM) and QAMS. The results showed that no significant differences were found in the quantitative results of the four contents of essential oil extract of ginger from three different extraction methods determined by ESM and QAMS. The QAMS method could serve as an accurate and convenient method in determining the gingerol components in the essential oil extract of ginger and its processed products.