Identification of major active constituents in the fingerprint of Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge developed by high-speed counter-current chromatography

High-speed counter-current chromatography was applied as a method to develop fingerprinting of Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge, a popular traditional Chinese medicine, in our previous study. Important active constituents that were directly related to the therapy effect should be identified. Each effluent fraction and standard samples (cryptotanshinone, tanshinoneI and tanshinoneIIA) were analyzed by ultraviolet spectroscopy and liquid chromatography–mass spectroscopy. It was concluded from the UV-Vis spectrograms, retention times in LC analysis and mass spectrograms, that fractions 7, 8 and 11 were respectively cryptotanshinone (Mr 296), tanshinone I (Mr 276) and tanshinone IIA (Mr 294).