Fingerprint Analysis of Desmodium Triquetrum L. Based on Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography with Photodiode Array Detector Combined with Chemometrics Methods

A fingerprinting approach was developed by means of ultra high-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detector for the quality control of Desmodium triquetrum L., an herbal medicine widely used for clinical purposes. Ten batches of raw material samples of D. triquetrum were collected from different regions of China. All UPLC analyses were carried out on a Waters ACQUITY UPLC BEH shield RP18 column (2.1 × 50 mm, 1.7 µm particle size) at 60°C, with a gradient mobile phase composed of 0.1% aqueous formic acid and acetonitrile at a flow rate of 0.45 mL/min. The method validation results demonstrated the developed method possessing desirable reproducibility, efficiency, and allowing fingerprint analysis in one chromatographic run within 13 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 D. triquetrum.