A sensitive and rapid high-performance liquid chromatographic-tandem mass spectrometric (HPLC/MS/MS) assay was developed for the determination of soyasaponins in soybean. Among soyasaponins, soyasaponin I was isolated and characterized from methanol extracts of soybean as analytical standards and the development of a new analytical procedure for quantification of its content in various cultivars. The structures of these compound was elucidated by $^1H$, $^{13}C$ NMR experiments and by mass spectrometric analysis. Aqueous ethanol extracts of soybean samples were injected on an Agilent XDB-C18 column ($4.6mm{ imes}50mm$, $1.8{mu}m$) with a mobile phase consisting of 10 mM ammonium acetate-acetonitrile, a flow rate of 0.3 mL/min and a total run time of 8 min. Detection was performed by mass spectrometer bin the multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode with negative electrospray ionization (ESI) m/z at 941 ${ ightarrow}$ 615 for soyasaponin I. In the 9 soybean samples, contents of soyasaponin I ranged from 205 to 726 mg/kg, and correlated negatively with seed size.