ABSTRACT
Objective: To establish HPLC-PDA fingerprint for study on Rabdosiae Rubescentis Herba (RRH) from different areas and to scientifically evaluate and effectively control the quality of RRH from different areas by HPLC fingerprint combined with principal component analysis (PCA). Methods: The fingerprint of RRH was established by HPLC-PDA and PCA and semblance analysis methods were applied to treating the experimental data in order to fine the similarity and difference among 18 batches of RRH from four different areas. The chromatographic procedure was carried out with DiamonsilTM C18 (250 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 μm) as an analytic column and a mixture consisting of acetonitrile-0.05% phosphoric acid in gradient as mobile phase, and the temperature of column was 30 ℃. The detection wavelength was set at 238 nm and the flow rate was 0.8 mL/min. Results: The common mode of HPLC characteristic chromatographic profile was set up with 19 common peaks, and four of them were identified as oridonin, ponicidin, lasiodonin, and rosmarinic acid. The similarities of 18 batches of RRH were between 0.421- 0.984. The result of PCA showed that the accumulative contribution rate of the first three factors was up to 87.3%, which were chosen to comprehensively evaluate the quality of RRH. Conclusion: The application of HPLC combined with PCA could quickly and objectively evaluate the quality difference of RRH in different batches.