Chemical profiling by LC-MS/MS and HPLC fingerprint combined with chemometrics and simultaneous determination of 16 characteristic ingredients for the quality consistency evaluation of Shaoyao-Gancao Decoction.

Abstract

In this paper, to evaluate the effect of the region of origin on the quality consistency of Shaoyao-Gancao Decoction (SGD), the SGD fingerprint was developed for the first time. Chemometric methods including similarity analysis, hierarchical clustering analysis and principal component analysis were employed to study the quality consistency of SGD. Meanwhile, high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry was applied for comprehensive analysis of SGD and 93 compounds were tentatively characterized. Furthermore, a high-performance liquid chromatography method with multi-wavelength switching for simultaneous determination of 16 characteristic ingredients comprising gallic acid, oxypaeniflorin, albiflorin, paeoniflorin, liquiritin apioside, liquiritin, isoliquiritin apioside, galloylpaeoniflorin, 1,2,3,4,6-penta-O-galloyl-d-galactopyranose (PGG), ononin, isoliquiritin, liquiritigenin, benzoylpaeoniflorin, glycyrrhizic acid, isoliquiritigenin and formononetin, was established. All 16 analytes show excellent linearity (R2 ≥ 0.9990) with recoveries ranging from 96.58 to 104.61% and limits of detection and quantification of 0.022-0.291 and 0.037-0.635 μg/mL, respectively. Finally, it was successfully applied to determine 15 batches of SGD. The results of our research indicate that different regions of origin have a significant effect on the quality consistency of SGD, and its fingerprint combined with chemometrics and multi-ingredient determination comprise an efficient and reliable approach for quality consistency evaluation.