MINI REVIEW article
Front. Chem.
Sec. Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fchem.2025.1694998
This article is part of the Research TopicMedicinal and edible TCMs: Extraction and Isolation, Structural Elucidation, Pharmacological Evaluation, Structural Modification, and Quality ControlView all 13 articles
Recent Progress in the Application of Hydrophilic Interaction Liquid Chromatography for the Separation and Analysis of Traditional Chinese Medicine
Provisionally accepted
源源 吴1
Hui Huang1Xianglong Zhao1,2Junhao Lin1Jialiang Guo2
Zhengjin Jiang1
Kesara Ar- Sanork1*Tao Deng2*
Dongsheng Xu1*- 1Jinan University, Guangzhou, China
- 2Foshan University, Foshan, China
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Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), with a history spanning over 2,000 years, contains numerous strongly polar components that are increasingly the focus of pharmaceutical and analytical research. However, conventional reversed-phase liquid chromatography usually fails to adequately retain and separate these highly polar components. Hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) has emerged as a powerful complementary technique, offering improved retention and separation for polar analytes. In recent years, HILIC has seen rapid development and wide application in the analysis of TCM. This review summarizes the major types of HILIC stationary phases and their recent applications in the separation of polar components in TCM. Particular attention is given to the analysis, quality control, and metabolomic profiling of bioactive compounds such as flavonoids, alkaloids, and saponins, highlighting the increasingly important role of HILIC in promoting TCM research.
Keywords: Traditional Chinese Medicine, hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography, Polar compounds, Stationary phases, Quality control
Received: 29 Aug 2025; Accepted: 19 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 吴, Huang, Zhao, Lin, Guo, Jiang, Ar- Sanork, Deng and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Kesara Ar- Sanork, kesara.ar@gmail.com
Tao Deng, dengtao@fosu.edu.cn
Dongsheng Xu, dongsheng.xu@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.