Research on contents of anthraquinones in Cassiae Semen by principal component analysis

Cassiae Semen is a common traditional Chinese medicine, and contents of anthraquinones of Cassiae Semen different significantly from area to area. According to Chinese Pharmacopoeia (2010 edition), only contents of aurantio obtusin and chrysophanol were used to evaluate the quality of Cassiae Semen, another data could be added later. Ten batches of Cassiae Semen from different areas were determined, and total anthraquinones, total free anthraquinones and total combined anthraquinones contents were assessed by ultraviolet visible spectrophotometer, contents of aurantio obtusin, rhein, aloe emodin, emodin, chrysophanol and physcion were determined by HPLC. After that, principal components analysis was used to evaluate these data determined previous by dimension reduction analysis. At last, the result suggests that three main components were found out, it shows that content of aloe emodin could be used to evaluate the quality of Cassiae Semen as well as contents of aurantio obtusin and chrysophanol. And Cassiae Semen from Hebei province posseses higher quality than Cassiae Semen from other different areas. All these results can provide a good reference for quality evaluating of Cassiae Semen medicinal materials at a certain extent.