RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE： To establish HPLC fingerprints of Ligusticum chuanxiong decoction pieces， and to conduct cluster analysis and PLS-DA analysis. METHODS： HPLC method was adopted. The determination was performed on Waters Symmetry C18 column with mobile phase consisted of acetonitrile-0.5％ acetic acid solution （gradient elution） at the flow rate of 1 mL/min. The detection wavelength was set at 254 nm， and the column temperature was 30 ℃. The sample size was 10 μL. Using ligustilide as control， HPLC chromatograms of 21 batches of samples （S1-S20） were determined. The similarity evaluation was conducted by using Similarity Evaluation System for Chromatographic Fingerprint of TCM （2012 edition） to determine common peak. Cluster analysis was conducted by using SPSS 19.0 software and PLS-DA was used to distinguish the samples. RESULTS： There were 25 common peaks in HPLC chromatograms for 21 batches of samples， and 9 common peaks were identified. The similarity of samples was between 0.768-0.989， and the similarity of base and traditional medicinal part samples （S1-S10） were more than 0.970. The 21 batches of samples were clustered into 3 categories， in which S1-S10 were category Ⅰ； S15-S16， S19-S20 were category Ⅱ； other were category Ⅲ. By PLS-DA analysis， 11 classification markers were identified as well as 5 chromatogram peaks were identified， such as ferulic acid， pine cyperyl ferulate， n-butyl phthalide， ligustilide， ligustilide A， which could be used to distinguish base and non-markted samples （S1-S10） from marketed and non-base samples （S11-S21）， which were consistent with the results of cluster analysis. CONCLUSIONS： Established fingerprint， cluster analysis and PLS-DA analysis can provide reference for quality evaluation of L. chuanxiong decoction pieces.