OBJECTIVE

2

To establish a high-performance liquid chromatography （HPLC） fingerprint and content determination method for

Phellodendron chinensis

， and to evaluate its quality combined with chemometrics analysis.

METHODS

2

The HPLC fingerprints of 30 batches of

P. chinensis

were established by the

Similarity Evaluation System for Chromatographic

Fingerprint of Traditional Chinese Medicine （2012 Edition）， and similarity evaluation and common peak identification were carried out.The contents of phellodendrine hydrochloride， magnoflorine， chlorogenic acid， 5-

O

-feruloylquinic acid， 4-

O

-feruloylquinic acid， 3-

O

-feruloylquinic acid， jatrorrhizine hydrochloride，and berberine hydrochloride were determined by the same HPLC method. Hierarchical cluster analysis （HCA）， principal component analysis （PCA）， and partial least squares-discriminant analysis （PLS-DA） were performed using the contents of the above eight components as variables.

RESULTS

2

A total of 16 common peaks were identified in the HPLC fingerprints of 30 batches of samples， and 8 common peaks were identified， including phellodendrine hydrochloride， magnoflorine， chlorogenic acid， 5-

O

-feruloylquinic acid， 4-

O

-feruloylquinic acid， 3-

O

-feruloylquinic acid， jatrorrhizine hydrochloride，and berberine hydrochloride. The similarity of 30 batches of samples ranged from 0.989 to 1.000. The results of content determination showed that the contents of eight components such as phellodendrine hydrochloride were 10.108-22.745，2.598-5.529，6.250-13.942，4.956-12.433，10.895-27.384，43.248-78.924， 0.428-1.154， 81.827-153.066 mg/g， respectively. The HCA results showed that 30 batches of samples were clustered into 3 categories：S1-S10 as one category， S11-S23 as one category，and S24-S30 as one category. The PCA results showed that the compre

hensive scores of 10 batches of samples from the Sichuan production area （S1-S10） ranked among the top 10. The PLS-DA results showed that the variable importance in projection values of berberine hydrochloride， 3-

O

-feruloylquinic acid， chlorogenic acid and phellodendrine hydrochloride were greater than 1.

CONCLUSIONS

2

The HPLC fingerprint and content determination methods established in this study are stable and reliable. Chemometric analysis based on multi-component content data can be used for the quality evaluation of

P. chinensis

. Berberine hydrochloride， phellodendrine hydrochloride，and 3-

O

-feruloylquinic acid may be the differential markers affecting the overall quality of

P. chinensis

.