Abstract
A widely used herbal medicine, Ixeris sonchifolia (Bge.) Hance Injectable (ISHI) was investigated for quality consistency. Characteristic fingerprints of 23 batches of the ISHI samples were generated at five wavelengths and evaluated by the systematic quantitative fingerprint method (SQFM) as well as simultaneous analysis of the content of seven marker compounds. Chemometric methods, i.e., support vector machine (SVM) and principal component analysis (PCA) were performed to assist in fingerprint evaluation of the ISHI samples. Qualitative classification of the ISHI samples by SVM was consistent with PCA, and in agreement with the quantitative evaluation by SQFM. In addition, the antioxidant activities of the ISHI samples were determined by both the off-line and on-line DPPH (2, 2-diphenyl-1-picryldrazyl) radical scavenging assays. A fingerprint-efficacy relationship linking the chemical components and in vitro antioxidant activity was established and validated using the partial least squares (PLS) and orthogonal projection to latent structures (OPLS) models; and the online DPPH assay further revealed those components that had position contribution to the total antioxidant activity. Therefore, the combined use of the chemometric methods, quantitative fingerprint evaluation by SQFM, and multiple marker compound analysis in conjunction with the assay of antioxidant activity provides a powerful and holistic approach to evaluate quality consistency of herbal medicines and their preparations.