Quality Evaluation of Yanggan Jiangcao Decoction Based on Physical and Chemical Fingerprints and Multi-component Content Determination

OBJECTIVE To establish the physical and chemical fingerprints of 15 batches of Yanggan Jiangcao decoction, and to determine the content of 7 index components, a comprehensive evaluation system integrating “physical fingerprints+chemical fingerprints+content determination” is employed to fully characterize the overall quality of the decoction.

METHODS Fifteen batches of decoction were prepared, and the physical fingerprint was constructed with 7 physical parameters, including dynamic viscosity, refractive index, conductivity, total dissolved solids, solid content, density and pH value. The chemical pattern recognition analysis of the physical fingerprint was carried out by similarity evaluation, hierarchical cluster analysis(HCA) and principal component analysis. The contents of salidroside, geniposide, forsythoside A, neohesperidin, baicalin, glycyrrhizic acid and atractylenolide Ⅲ were determined by HPLC and the chemical fingerprint was constructed. Combined with the physical fingerprint, the overall quality of the decoction was comprehensively evaluated.

RESULTS The similarity between the physical fingerprints of 15 batches of decoction was >0.89, and the results of HCA showed that the 15 batches of decoction were clustered into two categories. In the chemical fingerprint, the similarity of the 15 batches of decoction was >0.90 compared with the control spectrum. The content of 7 index ingredients in 15 batches of decoction were salidroside 0.2084–0.2537 mg∙g⁻¹, geniposide 2.0304–2.4263 mg∙g⁻¹, forsythoside A 0.7746–0.9501 mg∙g⁻¹, neohesperidin 0.7581–1.2392 mg∙g⁻¹,baicalin 4.7772–5.9415 mg∙g⁻¹, glycyrrhizic acid 0.1478–0.2348 mg∙g⁻¹and atractylenolide Ⅲ 0.0079–0.0166 mg∙g⁻¹. Except for batch BZTJ5, the HCA results based on content determination showed consistency with those derived from physical fingerprint analysis.

CONCLUSION The results show that the physical parameters of the Yanggan Jiangcao decoction are correlated with the chemical composition, and the physical fingerprint and chemical fingerprint can be combined to more accurately grasp the overall quality of the Yanggan Jiangcao decoction.