[Quality control of Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma based on fingerprint and quantitative analysis]

Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma, the dried rhizoma of Dioscorea nipponica, has been widely used in traditional Chinese medicines. According to the different of the growth and cultivation patterns, Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma can be divided into two species, the wild Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma and the cultivated Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma. In this paper, an accurate and reliable fingerprint of Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma was established based on HPLC coupled with evaporative light scattering detector(ELSD). A total of 6 common peaks were marked, and the similarity of the Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma samples was above 0.950. The results indicated that the established fingerprint could be used for quality evaluation of Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma. Moreover, an HPLC coupled with ELSD method was developed for simultaneous quantitative analysis of six steroidal saponins, including protodioscin, protogracillin, methyl protodioscin, pseudoprotodioscin, dioscin and gracillin in wild Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma and cultivated Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma samples. Furthermore, chemometrics analysis such as principal component analysis and partial least squares discriminant analysis were performed to compare and discriminate wild Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma and cultivated Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma samples based on the quantitative data. The results indicated that the contents of steroidal saponins were notably different between the wild and cultivated Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma, and protodioscin and protogracillin were significant to effectively discriminate the wild and cultivated Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma samples, and these two compounds could be recognized as chemical markers. In conclusion, this present study might provide useful data and acceptable analysis method for identification and quality evaluation of Dioscoreae Nipponicae Rhizoma.