Multi-constituent determination and fingerprint analysis of Scutellaria indica L. using ultra high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry

An ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry method integrating multi-constituent determination and fingerprint analysis has been established for quality assessment and control of Scutellaria indica L. The optimized method possesses the advantages of speediness, efficiency, and allows multi-constituents determination and fingerprint analysis in one chromatographic run within 11 min. 36 compounds were detected, and 23 of them were unequivocally identified or tentatively assigned. The established fingerprint method was applied to the analysis of ten S . indica samples from different geographic locations. The quality assessment was achieved by using principal component analysis. The proposed method is useful and reliable for the characterization of multi-constituents in a complex chemical system and the overall quality assessment of S . indica .