Baizhu Shaoyao San (BSS) is a famous traditional Chinese medicinal formula widely used for the treatment of painful diarrhea, intestinal inflammation, and diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome. According to clinical medication, three medicinal herbs (Atractylodis Macrocephalae Rhizoma, Paeoniae Radix Alba, and Citri Reticulatae Pericarpium) included in BSS must be processed using some specific methods of stir-frying. On the basis of the classical theories of traditional Chinese medicine, the therapeutic effects of BSS would be significantly enhanced after processing. Generally, the changes of curative effects mainly result from the variations of inside chemical basis caused by the processing procedure. To find out the corresponding changes of chemical compositions in BSS after processing and to elucidate the material basis of the changed curative effects, an optimized ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole/time-of-flight mass spectrometry in positive and negative ion modes coupled with multivariate statistical analyses were developed. As a result, a total of 186 compounds were ultimately identified in crude and processed BSS, in which 62 marker compounds with significant differences between crude and processed BSS were found by principal component analysis and t-test. Compared with crude BSS, the contents of 23 compounds were remarkably decreased and the contents of 39 compounds showed notable increase in processed BSS. The transformation mechanisms of some changed compounds were appropriately inferred from the results. Furthermore, compounds with extremely significant differences might strengthen the effects of the whole herbal formula.

白术少药散（BSS）是一种著名的中药配方，广泛用于治疗腹泻，肠道炎症和以腹泻为主的肠易激综合症。根据临床药物，必须使用一些特定的油炸方法来处理BSS中包含的三种药材（白术，白e药和网纹皮）。在经典的中医理论基础上，经处理后，BSS的治疗效果将大大增强。通常，治疗效果的变化主要是由于加工程序引起的内部化学基础的变化。为了找出加工后BSS中化学成分的相应变化并阐明改变后的疗效的物质基础，在正离子和负离子模式下优化了超高效液相色谱-四极杆/飞行时间质谱加上多元统计分析。结果，在粗制和加工的BSS中最终鉴定出总共186种化合物，其中通过主成分分析发现了62种在粗制和加工BSS之间具有显着差异的标记化合物。t检验。与粗制BSS相比，加工后的BSS中23种化合物的含量显着降低，39种化合物的含量显着增加。从结果可以适当地推断出一些变化的化合物的转化机理。此外，具有极大差异的化合物可能会增强整个草药配方的功效。