Chemical fingerprint analysis of Gentianae Radix et Rhizoma by high-performance liquid chromatography

Abstract

Gentianae Radix et Rhizoma (also called “Longdan” in Chinese) is commonly used for eliminating damp-heat and quenching the fire of liver and gall bladder in traditional Chinese medicine. In this study, a novel and reliable method using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was developed both for quantitative analysis of four bioactive compounds (loganic acid, swertiamarin, gentiopicroside and sweroside) and chemical fingerprint analysis of “Longdan”. In quantitative analysis, four compounds showed good regressions (R2>0.9987) within the test ranges and the recovery of the method was in the range 97.61−102.49%. In fingerprint analysis, ten characteristic peaks were selected to evaluate the similarities of the crude drugs, and the HPLC chromatograms of twenty samples from different regions of China showed similar patterns. The results demonstrated that the combination of the quantitative and chromatographic fingerprint analyses offered an efficient way to evaluate the quality consistency of Gentianae Radix et Rhizoma.

Keywords

• Gentianae Radix et Rhizoma
• Loganic acid
• Swertiamarin
• Gentiopicroside
• Sweroside
• HPLC
• Quantitative determination
• Fingerprint
• Quality control