An Approach Based on HPLC-Fingerprint and Chemometrics to Quality Consistency Evaluation of Matricaria chamomilla L. Commercial Samples

Abstract

Chamomile has been used as an herbal medication since ancient times and is still popular because it contains various bioactive phytochemicals that could provide therapeutic effects. In this study, a simple and reliable HPLC method was developed to evaluate the quality consistency of nineteen chamomile samples through establishing a chromatographic fingerprint, quantification of phenolic compounds and determination of antioxidant activity. For fingerprint analysis, 12 peaks were selected as the common peaks to evaluate the similarities of commercial samples of chamomile obtained from different manufacturers. A similarity analysis was performed to assess the similarity/dissimilarity of chamomile samples where values varied from 0.868 to 0.990 what indicating that samples from different manufacturers were consistent. Additionally, simultaneous quantification of five phenolic acids (gallic, caffeic, syringic, p-coumaric, ferulic) and four flavonoids (rutin, myricetin, quercetin and keampferol) was performed to interpret the quality consistency. In quantitative analysis, the nine individual phenolic compounds showed good regression (r > 0.9975). Inter- and intra-day precisions for all analyzed compounds expressed as relative standard deviation (CV) ranged from 0.05% to 3.12%. Since flavonoids and other polyphenols are commonly recognized as natural antioxidants, the antioxidant activity of chamomile samples was evaluated using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity and ferric reducing/antioxidant power (FRAP) assay. Correlation analysis was used to assess the relationship between antioxidant activity and phenolic composition, and multivariate analysis (PCA and HCA) were applied to distinguish chamomile samples. Results shown in the study indicate high similarity of chamomile samples among them, widely spread in the market and commonly used by people as infusions or teas, as well as that there were no statistically significant differences among them, which in turn is a proof of high quality of commercially available samples of chamomile. The study indicated that the combination of chromatographic fingerprint and quantitative analysis can be readily utilized as a quality consistency method for chamomile and related medicinal preparations. Moreover, the applied strategy seems to be the most promising for the assessment of the investigated plant material.

Comparison of the chromatographic fingerprint, multicomponent quantitation and antioxidant activity of Salvia miltiorrhiza Bge. between sweating and nonsweating

“…At present, the fingerprint technique, especially chromatographic fingerprints, owing to their integrity and fuzziness, have recently become a routine technique for the assessment and quality control of TCM (Mao et al, ; Wang, Yan, Yang, Zhang, & Jia, ). Among these fingerprint techniques, HPLC fingerprinting is widely used because of its convenience and efficiency (Kim, Doh, & Lee, ; Tang et al, ; Viapiana, Strucklewicka, Konieczynski, Wesolowski, & Kaliszan, ). While similarity between chromatographic fingerprints does not accurately reflect their closeness in contents of constituents (X. Liu et al, ), a chromatographic fingerprint combined with quantitative analysis of active compounds has recently been applied to improve quality assessment of herbal medicine injection (Chang et al, ).…”

“…Among these fingerprint techniques, HPLC fingerprinting is widely used because of its convenience and efficiency (Kim, Doh, & Lee, 2016;Tang et al, 2014;Viapiana, Strucklewicka, Konieczynski, Wesolowski, & Kaliszan, 2016). While similarity between chromatographic fingerprints does not accurately reflect their closeness in contents of constituents (X. , a chromatographic fingerprint combined with quantitative analysis of active compounds has recently been applied to improve quality assessment of herbal medicine injection (Chang et al, 2002).…”

Chemical Fingerprint and Multicomponent Quantitative Analysis for the Quality Evaluation of Cyclocarya paliurus Leaves by HPLC–Q–TOF–MS

“…At present, this method has been adopted by the World Health Organization and other authorities as a strategy for quality assessment of botanical products [ 18 , 29 , 30 ]. Among the chromatographic fingerprinting applied to the authentication and qualitative evaluation of botanical products over the past decade, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) fingerprint emerges to be the most widely used method due to its convenience and efficiency [ 25 , 31 , 32 ]. To date, little is known about the quality evaluation of C. paliurus from different geographic locations.…”

Quality Evaluation of Corydalis yanhusuo by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Fingerprinting Coupled with Multicomponent Quantitative Analysis

“…Samples 1-8 and 22-23 were unprocessed (crude drugs), 9-20 were boiled (cooked drugs), and sample 21 was sulfur-fumigated. For better comparison, we used samples originating from Zhejiang, excluding those produced outside of this province (samples [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. It seemed the fingerprints of crude drugs and cooked medicines were obviously different in areas A and C (see Supplementary Fig.…”