Quality evaluation of Gardeniae Fructus from different areas by using chemical pattern recognition based on combination of chromatographic fingerprints and multi-component content / 中草药

ABSTRACT

Objective: To evaluate the quality of Gardeniae Fructus from different producing areas and optimize the best place of production by using chemical pattern recognition method based on HPLC fingerprint and multi-component content determination. Methods: The RP-HPLC using acetonitrile-0.1% phosphoric acid aqueous solution as mobile phase based on the wavelength switching (234 nm and 440 nm) and gradient elution method was developed to evaluate the quality of 30 batches of Gardeniae Fructus from 10 different producing areas. The combination of chromatographic fingerprints and quality determination of five active ingredients, as well as chemometrics including hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and principal component analysis (PCA), were further employed for the quality assessment. Results: The fingerprint similarity of 30 batches of Gardeniae Fructus from 10 different producing areas were all above 0.95. The content ranges of deacetylated methyl oxalate, genipin gentiobioside, geniposide, crocin I, and crocin II were 0.61-4.26 mg/g, 1.73-12.92 mg/g, 51.79-82.76 mg/g, 5.03-12.80 mg/g, and 0.71-2.28 mg/g. Samples can be divided into three categories by HCA The first category is Yongzhou in Hunan, Yong’ an in Hunan, Fengcheng in Jiangxi, Hukou in Jiangxi, Guangde in Anhui, and Fuding in Fujian; The second category is Lichuan in Jiangxi, Jurong in Jiangsu and Tanghe in Henan; And the third category is Lu’ an in Anhui. PCA was used to further evaluate the quality differences of the samples from different producing areas, and it was found that the medicinal materials from Lu’ an in Anhui, Hukou in Jiangxi, and Yong’ an in Hunan were of superior quality. Conclusion: The quality of Gardeniae Fructus from different producing areas was different to a certain extent, while the quality of same batches was stable. By combination of fingerprint and content determination, the chemical pattern recognition method can be used to evaluate the quality of the Gardeniae Fructus comprehensively. The establishment of this method provided an effective reference for the quality control and evaluation of Gardeniae Fructus.