[Studies on pharmacognostic identification and quality control standards for hongqu]

To develop effective methods for quality control of the traditional Chinese drug Hongqu.

TLC and microscopic identification were performed. HPLC was used to determine the content of lovastatin.

A lot of hyphae and spores in Hongqu were observed under microscope. The spot of lovastatin was found on the TLC chromatogram. The standard curve of lovastatin by HPLC was linera in the range of 5 micrograms/ml-100 micrograms/ml. The average recovery of lovastatin was 96.4%, RSD 3.68%, n = 5.

The methods are simple, sensitive and accurate. These studies provide the scientific basis for quality evaluation and quality control of Hongqu.