RESUMEN
Objective: To evaluate the effect of irradiation of 60Co-γ on composition change of Curcuma Longa through HPLC fingerprint analysis and determination of curcumin content. Methods: An Agilent SB-C18 column (250 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 μm) was used as the column. Curcumin content was measured according to the method in 2015 edition of the “Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China”. Acetonitrile-0.1% phosphoric acid aqueous solution was used as the mobile phase of fingerprint analysis, and it was programmed in a gradient elution model and the detection wavelength was 240 nm. The effects of irradiation on content of curcumin and components change were analyzed by paired t-test and similarity evaluation. And then the comprehensive evaluation of constituent difference of C. Longa before and after irradiation was carried out by HCA and PCA analysis. Further more the stability of curcumin content and fingerprint similarity of three patches samples storage for 3 and 6 months was compared with that of 0 month. Results: There was no significant difference before and after irradiation for curcumin content (P > 0.05). The fingerprints of C. Longae were established and 16 peaks were identified as the common peaks. The similarity of each batch before and after irradiation was more than 0.998 and the same batch before and after irradiation have better clustering consistency. The changes of curcumin content for 3 and 6 months compared with 0 month was less than 5%, and the fingerprint similarity was all greater than 0.95. Conclusion: The established fingerprinting method is accurate and reliable. 60Co-γ irradiation has no significant effect on the curcumin content and chemical composition consistency of C. Longa, which did not affect its stability. It was a good way to evaluate the 60Co-γ irradiation effect on C. Longa by combining fingerprint analysis and the index components content determination. This method can provide reference for the utilization of irradiation on C. Longa.