ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE To establish the fingerprint of Tibetan medicine Adhatoda vasica ，and determine the contents of vasicine and vasicinone ，so as to comprehensively evaluate its quality combined with chemical pattern recognition. METHODS Using vasicine as control ，HPLC fingerprints of 11 batches of A. vasica were established with Similarity Evaluation System for Chromatographic Fingerprints of TCM （2012 edition）. The common peaks were identified and their similarities were evaluated. Cluster analysis （CA），principal component analysis （PCA）and orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis （OPLS-DA） were performed by using SPSS 25 software and SIMCA 14.1 software. The variable importance in the projection （VIP）value＞1.0 was used as the standard to screen the differential components affecting the quality of A. vasica ；the contents of vasicine and vasicinone were determined by HPLC simultaneously. RESULTS A total of 23 common peaks were found ，and peak 2 was identified as vasicine ，and peak 4 was identified as vasicinone. Their similarities ranged 0.920-0.994. The results of CA showed that 11 batches of samples were clustered into 3 categories（distance was 14）：S1-S8 as one category （origin：Yunnan，Tibet），S9 as one category （origin：Yunnan），S10-S11 as one category （origin：Sichuan）；the results of P CA and OPLS-DA showed that S 9 and S10-S11 were divided into one category respectively ，and S1-S8 were further divided into 2 categories：S1，S4 as one category，S2-S3，S5-S8 as one category ；the common peaks with VIP value ＞1.0 included peak 2，peak 16，peak 21，peak 17，peak 1 and peak 13. Among 11 batches of samples ， contents of vasicine and vasicinone were 4.12-10.22 and 0.60-3.26 mg/g， respectively. CONCLUSIONS Established edu.cn HPLC fi ngerprint and content determination method are simple and accurate ，and can be used for the quality evaluation of Tibetan medicine A. vasica ，by combining with chemical pattern recognition. Vasicine and other components may be the differential components that affect the quality of the drug.