Quantitative analysis of a multicomponent system for liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry determination of diosgenin, dioscin and protodioscin in plant extracts of Tribulus terrestris

An approach for the simultaneous determination of dioscin, protodioscin, and diosgenin in plant extracts by the liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry method with detection limits from 5 to 20 ng mL–1 is developed. Reversed-phase chromatography with the C18 sorbent followed by positive ion electrospray ionization and tandem mass spectrometric detection is used to analyze plant extracts. The external calibration and the quantitative analysis of multicomponent system are used to calculate the content based on peak areas in the chromatograms of the extracted ions. The difference between the results is shown to be less than 10%. The proposed approach is tested in the analysis of ethanolic and aqueous methanolic extracts of the aerial parts of Tribulus terrestris.