Application of Mass Spectrometry in the Study of Binding Interactions between Small Molecules in Chinese Medicinal Herbs and Biomacromolecules

The Chinese medicinal herbs exert their pharmacological effects through a multi-component and multi-target way. Studies on the binding interactions between the chemical components in the herbal medicine and biomacromolecules can not only provide the scientific basis to clarify the mechanism and foundation underlies the pharmacological effects of the herbal medicines but also provide theoretical guidelines for the design of new drugs. Soft ionization mass spectrometric techniques, especially electrospray ionization mass spectrometry(ESI-MS) and matrixassisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry(MALDI-MS) can transfer the intact complexes formed between drugs and biomacromolecules into the gas phase and detect the existence of the complexes, which have shown promising application to the study of binding interactions between small molecules in Chinese medicinal herbs and biomacromolecules. The combination of mass spectrometry with chromatographic techniques has also shown great advantages to explore the interactions of the chemical components in complex herb systems towards the biomacromolecules. The paper introduced the application mechanism of mass spectrometry for the analysis of drug-biomacromolecules interactions and summarized the application of soft ionization mass spectrometry in the study of binding interactions between the small molecules in Chinese medicinal herbs and biomacromolecules in recent years.