A Fast and Reliable UPLC-PAD Fingerprint Analysis of Chimonanthus salicifolius Combined with Chemometrics Methods

A novel fingerprinting approach was developed by means of ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detector (UPLC-PAD) for the quality control of Chimonanthus salicifolius (C. salicifolius). All UPLC analyses were carried out on a Waters Acquity BEH Phenyl column (2.1 × 50 mm, 1.7 μm particle size) at 48°C, with a gradient mobile phase composed of 0.1% aqueous phosphoric acid and acetonitrile at a flow rate of 0.2 mL/min. The method validation results demonstrated the developed method possessing desirable precision [<0.88% relative standard deviation (RSD)], reproducibility (<1.87% RSD), stability (<1.42% RSD) and allowing fingerprint analysis in one chromatographic run within 21 min. The quality assessment was achieved by using chemometrics methods including similarity analysis, hierarchical clustering analysis and principal component analysis. The developed method can be used for further quality control of C. salicifolius.