OBJECTIVE

2

To evaluate the quality of Xihuang pills， and to screen the differential markers affecting its quality.

METHODS

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Using muskone as internal reference， the content of α-pinene and other 4 components were determined by quantitative analysis of multi-components by single marker （QAMS）， and compared with the results of external standard method. The fingerprints of 13 batches of Xihuang pills were established by gas chromatography （GC） method. Cluster analysis （CA） and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis （OPLS-DA） were performed by SPSS 25.0 software and SIMCA 14.1 software. The variable importance projection （VIP） value greater than 1 was used as the standard to screen differential markers affecting the quality of the samples.

RESULTS

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The contents of α-pinene， octyl acetate and

β

-elemene measured by QAMS were 0-0.628 4， 0.378 0-2.679 4 and 0.320 9-0.815 4 mg/g， respectively. The contents of

α

-pinene， octyl acetate，

β

-elemene and musk ketone measured by external standard method were 0.001 5-0.627 1， 0.378 0-2.594 7， 0.329 2-0.837 0 and 0.385 7-0.806 0 mg/g， respectively. The relative error of the content determination results of the two methods was less than 4%. There were 26 common peaks in 13 batches of Xihuang pills， and 3 common peaks， such as octyl acetate，

β

-elemene and musk ketone， were identified； their similarities were 0.912-0.946. 13 batches of samples could be divided into two categories （S1-S2， S6-S10， S13 were clustered into one category and S3-S5， S11-S12 were clustered into one category）. VIP values of peak 7， 11， 10， 17 and 16 were all greater than 1.

CONCLUSIONS

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The content of 4 components such as α-pinene in Xihuang pills combined with GC fingerprint and chemical pattern recognition analysis can be used to evaluate the quality of Xihuang pills. The components corresponding to 5 common peaks such as peak 7 may be differential markers affecting the quality of the samples.