Abstract

Background: The quality control indexes detected by the existing methods are less and lack specificity, and cannot truly reflect their intrinsic quality because of the similarity of Schisandra chinensis and Schisandra sphenanthera in both their appearance and their main chemical composition. Therefore, it is urgent to establish an effective method for the quality control of the both. High-performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE) method was used to establish the fingerprints of Schisandra medicinal materials.

Methods: The HPCE was performed, in which a 50µm × 50cm (the effective length was 41.5cm) uncoated fused silica capillary column was applied, the buffer solution was 10 mM phosphate buffer (pH 8)-37.5 mM SDS-35% acetonitrile (v/v), the working voltage was 28 kV, the temperature was 25°C, the samples were injected at 50mbar pressure for 3s, and the detection wavelength was 214nm. The chromatographic fingerprints of samples were analyzed using “traditional Chinese medicine chromatographic fingerprint similarity evaluation system 2004A version” software and cluster analysis.

Results: 10 common peaks were confirmed and 8 components were identified in the HPCE fingerprints of 20 batches of Schisandra chinensis and Schisandra sphenanthera, and the results of clustering were consistent with those of similarity evaluation.

Conclusion: This method should be accurate and reliable, and can provide a scientific basis for the quality evaluation of Schisandra medicinal materials.

Keywords: Schisandra chinensis, Schisandra sphenanthera, high performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE), fingerprint, cluster analysis, quality evaluation.