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As increasing numbers of people worldwide are using traditional Chinese medicines, their characterization has become increasingly critical. This study describes the development of a facile and reproducible high-performance liquid chromatography-based method to obtain the fingerprint of the traditional Chinese medicine Yuhuanglian. First, similarity analysis and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) were investigated to interpret differences in the chromatograms of samples from different groups. Seven fingerprint peaks were identified by electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS), including magnolforine, coptisine, berberin, epiberberin, dehydroevodiamine, 12α-hydroxylimonin, and 12α-hydroxyevodol. The established fingerprint method was then applied to the analysis of Evodiae Fructus, Coptis Rhizoma, Yuhuanglian, and analogs of Yuhuanglian, which reflected their chemical constituent properties. The proposed method provides a technical platform for the characterization of Yuhuanglian, which will ensure the safe and effective use of this traditional Chinese medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Two new anthraquinone glycosides, named 1-methyl-8-hydroxyl-9,10-anthraquinone-3-O-β-d-(6'-O-cinnamoyl)glucopyranoside (1) and rhein-8-O-β-d-[6'-O-(3''-methoxyl malonyl)]glucopyranoside (2), have been isolated from the roots of Rheum palmatum, together with seven known compounds, rhein-8-O-β-d-glucopyranoside (3), physcion-8-O-β-d-glucopyranoside (4), chrysophanol-8-O-β-d-glucopyranoside (5), aleo-emodin-8-O-β-d-glucopyranoside (6), emodin-8-O-β-d-glucopyranoside (7), aleo-emodin-ω-O-β-d-glucopyranoside (8), and emodin-1-O-β-d-glucopyranoside (9). Their structures were elucidated on the basis of chemical and spectral analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to its variety of functions, rhubarb has been used for thousands of years in many countries. It is commonly used after processing. Processing usually affect the chemical profile and the contents of active compounds in herbals, leading to changes of their bioactivities. Here, an approach of metabolite profiling and diagnostic ion filtering strategy with liquid chromatography–quadrupole/time-of-flight mass spectrometry was established for rapid identification of raw and processed pieces of Rheum palmatum L. (RPL). The comprehensive and unbiased information of 30 batches of RPL covering raw and two general processing methods were given by metabolomic profiles. Using molecular feature extraction algorithm, non-targeted compounds were analyzed in minutes. In total, 73 characteristic markers were extracted and identified by diagnostic ion filtering. They have been further analyzed by partial least squares–support vector machine-based pattern recognition. The comprehensive and rapid method for raw and processed pieces of RPL classification shows good sensitivity, specificity and prediction performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]