[Chromatographic fingerprint and quality control of traditional Chinese medicines]

The development of modern chromatographic technologies and related chemometric methods in the research of chromatographic fingerprint, and their applications in quality control of traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) are comprehensively reviewed. Furthermore, we preliminarily discuss the quality control methods and their feasibility to guarantee that the TCMs can be used stably and effectively. A new strategy is proposed to establish the comprehensive relationships between chromatographic fingerprints and their pharmacodynamic (toxicity) information with the help of the techniques of modern chromatography, chemometrics and system biology to reveal the working mechanism of TCMs and then to comprehensively control the quality of TCMs.