ABSTRACT
Quality marker (Q-marker) is one of the new directions in the research of quality control of Chinese materia medica. The Q-marker can be either quality chemomarker (Q-chemomarker) or quality biomarker (Q-biomarker). The establishment of a good Q-biomarker can improve the linkage of Chinese medicine quality control methods and standards with clinical safety and effectiveness, at the same time considering the operability of quality control. At present, the FDA of China and the United States have adopted biological evaluation methods as an important part of quality control of Chinese medicines and botanicals medicines. Many companies and researchers are also actively exploring and developing methods for the evaluation of quality of Chinese materia medica. This paper further enlarges and expands the methods and indicators of biological evaluation of Chinese materia medica, and summarizes and analyzes relevant research examples from the perspective of Q-biomarker. We hope that it would promote the richness and development of the theoretical system of Chinese medicine quality markers, so as to provide a reference to solve the practical problems for the quality control and evaluation of Chinese materia medica.