Holistic Evaluation of Quality Consistency of Ixeris sonchifolia (Bunge) Hance Injectables by Quantitative Fingerprinting in Combination with Antioxidant Activity and Chemometric Methods

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 11; no. 2; p. e0148878
• Main Authors: Yang, Lanping, Sun, Guoxiang, Guo, Yong, Hou, Zhifei, Chen, Shuai
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 12.02.2016; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Antioxidants; Antioxidants (Nutrients); Antioxidants - administration & dosage; Antioxidants - chemistry; Antioxidants - pharmacology; Assaying; Asteraceae - chemistry; Biology and Life Sciences; Biphenyl Compounds - chemistry; Chinese medicine; Chromatography; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; Computer and Information Sciences; Consistency; Discriminant analysis; Drugs, Chinese Herbal - administration & dosage; Drugs, Chinese Herbal - chemistry; Drugs, Chinese Herbal - pharmacology; Engineering and Technology; Evaluation; Fingerprinting; Fingerprints; Flavonoids; Food; Health aspects; Herbal medicine; Injections; Ischemia; Ixeris; Medicine and Health Sciences; Medicine, Chinese Traditional; Methods; Pharmaceuticals; Pharmacy; Physical Sciences; Picrates - chemistry; Principal Component Analysis; Principal components analysis; Quality control; Quantitative analysis; Research and Analysis Methods; Social Sciences; Support Vector Machine; Support vector machines; Traditional Chinese medicine; Wavelengths; China
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0148878

A widely used herbal medicine, Ixeris sonchifolia (Bge.) Hance Injectable (ISHI) was investigated for quality consistency. Characteristic fingerprints of 23 batches of the ISHI samples were generated at five wavelengths and evaluated by the systematic quantitative fingerprint method (SQFM) as well as simultaneous analysis of the content of seven marker compounds. Chemometric methods, i.e., support vector machine (SVM) and principal component analysis (PCA) were performed to assist in fingerprint evaluation of the ISHI samples. Qualitative classification of the ISHI samples by SVM was consistent with PCA, and in agreement with the quantitative evaluation by SQFM. In addition, the antioxidant activities of the ISHI samples were determined by both the off-line and on-line DPPH (2, 2-diphenyl-1-picryldrazyl) radical scavenging assays. A fingerprint-efficacy relationship linking the chemical components and in vitro antioxidant activity was established and validated using the partial least squares (PLS) and orthogonal projection to latent structures (OPLS) models; and the online DPPH assay further revealed those components that had position contribution to the total antioxidant activity. Therefore, the combined use of the chemometric methods, quantitative fingerprint evaluation by SQFM, and multiple marker compound analysis in conjunction with the assay of antioxidant activity provides a powerful and holistic approach to evaluate quality consistency of herbal medicines and their preparations.