Background:As one of the most popular traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) for the treatment of various liver diseases,virgate wormwood herb (Artemisia capillaris Thunb.) has a long application history in TCM practices.It has been well established that the chemical composition is responsible for the pronounced therapeutic spectrum of A.capillaris.Although they are comprehensive,the time-intensive liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) assays cannot fully satisfy the analytical measurement workload from many test samples.Direct infusion-MS/MS (DI-MS/MS) may be the optimal choice to achieve high-throughput analysis if the mass spectrometer can universally record MS2 spectra.Methods:According to the application of gas phase ion fractionation concept,the MS/MSALL program enables to gain MS2 spectrum for each nominal m/z value with a data-independent acquisition algorithm via segmenting the entire MS1 ion cohort into sequential ion pieces with 1 Da width,when sufficient measurement time is allowed by DI approach.Here,rapid clarification of the chemical composition was attempted for A.capillaris using DI-MS/MSALL.A.capillaris extract was imported directly into the elec-trospray ionization interface to obtain the MS/MSALL measurement.After the MS1-MS2 dataset was well organized,we focused on structural characterization through retrieving information from the available databases and literature.Results:Twenty-six compounds were found,including 12 caffeoyl quinic acid derivatives,7 flavonoids,and 7 compounds belonging to other chemical families.Among them,24 ones were structurally iden-tified.Compared with the LC-MS/MS technique,DI-MS/MSALL has the advantages of low-costing,solvent-saving,and time-saving.Conclusions:Chemical profiling of A.capillaris extract was accomplished within 5 min by DI-MS/MSALL,and this technique can be an alternative choice for chemical profile characterization of TCMs due to its extraordinary high-throughput advantage.