Combination with Chemometrics and Quantification for Quality Evaluation and Variety Identification of Flos...

Flos Chimonanthi Praecocis (FCP) is one of the popular traditional Chinese medicines, which have been widely used in China. Inconspicuous appearance differences are disadvantageous for identification, and it is difficult to evaluate the quality of FCP using the current methods. In this article, a simple method that combined chemometrics and quantitative analysis was established. The samples were obtained from three typical varieties for fingerprint analysis by high-performance liquid chromatography. Contents of rutin and quercetin were determined, and then a common pattern with 16 characteristic peaks was applied for principal component analysis, similarity analysis, and the hierarchical cluster analysis heatmap (HCA heatmap) to characterize the similarity and differences among samples for identification. Furthermore, seven characteristics peaks with higher loading values were selected for chemometrics analysis after dimensionality reduction to reduce analytical difficulty, and the new common pattern showed the similar identification effects. Overall, combination with chemometrics and quantitative analysis would provide a useful and simple method for quality control of FCP in the future.