Comprehensive quality evaluation of Polygoni Orientalis Fructus and its processed product: chemical fingerprinting and simultaneous determination of seven major components coupled with chemometric analyses

Introduction Polygoni Orientalis Fructus (POF) is a clinically effective Chinese medicine. Raw POF (RPOF) and POF Tostus (POFT) are used separately in clinics. However, incomplete progress has been made on quality control. Objective To establish a comprehensive method for quality assessment of RPOF and POFT and to discriminate these two varieties. Methodology High‐performance liquid chromatography combined with the diode array detector (HPLC‐DAD) methods were developed for fingerprinting and quantitative analysis of seven major compounds in RPOF and POFT, and the main components were determined by HPLC‐DAD coupled with Fourier‐transform ion cyclotron resonance‐mass spectrometry. Chemometric approaches were performed to discriminate RPOF and POFT and to screen discriminatory components. Results Fingerprints were established and 12 common peaks were identified, cannabisin G and cannabisin E were firstly identified from POF. In quantitative analysis, all analytes showed good regression (R > 0.9996) within test ranges and the recovery of the method was in the range 96.6–104.3%. Fingerprints in conjunction with similarity analysis and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) demonstrated the consistent quality of RPOF and showed a clear discrimination between RPOF and POFT. Principal component analysis, partial least‐squares discriminant analysis, and heatmap‐HCA on quantitative data not only gave a clear differentiation between RPOF and POFT, but they also suggested that quercetin, 3,5,7‐trihydroxychromone, and N‐trans‐feruloyltyramine acted as the main factors responsible for the sample differences. Conclusions Chromatographic analysis in combination with chemometric analysis provides a simple and reliable method of comparing and evaluating the qualities of RPOF and POFT. The purpose of this work is to establish a simple and acceptable method for quality assessment of raw Polygoni Orientalis Fructus (RPOF) and Polygoni Orientalis Fructus Tostus (POFT) and to discriminate these two varieties by using chemical fingerprinting and simultaneous determination of seven major components coupled with chemometric analyses. The chromatographic methods were established. The chromatographic analysis gave a clear differentiation between RPOF and POFT and filtered out three components which acted as the main factors responsible for the samples differences.