A traditional herbal formula, Gyeji-tang has been used to treat the early colds, headache, chills, and fever in Asian countries. In this study, we were performed simultaneous determination of the 14 bioactive marker compounds, gallic acid, spinosin, paeoniflorin, albiflorin, liquiritin apioside, liquiritin, 6′′′-feruloylspinosin, liquilitigenin, coumarin, cinnmamic acid, benzoylpaeoniflorin, cinnamaldehyde, glycyrrhizin, and 6-gingerol in Gyeji-tang using an ultra-performance liquid chromatography- electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (UPLC-ESI-MS/MS). Analytical column was used a Waters Acquity UPLC BEH C18 analytical column (2.1×100 mm, 1.7 μm) and maintained at 45 o C with a flow rate of 0.3 mL/min. The mobile phase consists of 0.1% (v/v) formic acid in water and acetonitrile with gradient elution. The MS analysis was conducted using multiple reaction monitoring in the positive and negative modes by a Waters ACQUITY TQD LC-MS/MS system. The calibration curves of 14 bioactive marker compounds showed linearity with correlation coefficients ≥ 0.9798. The limits of detection and quantification values were in the range of 0.11-6.66 ng/mL and 0.34-19.99 ng/mL, respectively. As a result of the analysis using the established LC-MS/MS method, the amounts of tested 14 compounds in the lyophilized Gyeji-tang sample were detected up to 85.7 μg/g. These results may be useful for quality assessment of a traditional herbal formulas.
