Quality control of Radix Paeoniae Alba, a traditional Chinese medicine, using HPLC fingerprinting in combination with simultaneous determination of multi-components / 国际药学研究杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the HPLC fingerprint of the EtOAc extract, the major bioactive extract of Radix Paeoniae Alba (RPA), a traditional Chinese medicine from Paeonia lactiflora Pall., quantitatively determine main components in the EtOAc extract and perform fast RPA quality evaluation by the HPLC method using RPA samples from different areas of China to afford a useful method for the RPA quality control. Methods A Waters HPLC equipment with a 2996 photodiode array detector(PDA) was used for HPLC, and the PDA detector was set to scan a range from 200-400 μm. HPLC was carried out on a Scincehome C18 column (4. 6 mm × 250 mm, 5 μm)using acetonitrile-aqueous phosphoric acid solution (pH 2.7) in a linear gradient at 1. 0 ml/min of the flow rate as mobile phase, and each 10 μl of sample solutions was injected to the column. HPLC chromatograms for fingerprint analysis were taken at 230 nm, and the fingerprint analysis was performed both by the similarity analysis and the hierarchical cluster analysis(HCA) methods. Results A standard fingerprint of RPA was obtained, where 11 peaks have been assigned using reference compounds. The similarity analysis and HCA upon the fingerprints from 33 batches of RPA samples gave grossly consistent results to divide these RPA into two categories. Moreover, an HPLC method to simultaneously determine 6 main components in RPA was established and applied to quantitatively determine the 6 components in 11 RPA samples purchased from different areas of China. Conclusion The quality evaluation of RPA by fingerprinting coupled with simultaneous determination of multi-components showed higher specificity and provided a useful HPLC method for quality control of RPA.