title: HPLC fingerprint analysis combined with chemometrics for pattern recognition of ginger.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Ginger, the fresh rhizome of Zingiber officinale Rosc. (Zingiberaceae), has been used worldwide; however, for a long time, there has been no standard approbated internationally for its quality control.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To establish an efficacious and combinational method and pattern recognition technique for quality control of ginger.
  
  
  METHODS
  A simple, accurate and reliable method based on high-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array (HPLC-PDA) detection was developed for establishing the chemical fingerprints of 10 batches of ginger from different markets in China. The method was validated in terms of precision, reproducibility and stability; and the relative standard deviations were all less than 1.57%. On the basis of this method, the fingerprints of 10 batches of ginger samples were obtained, which showed 16 common peaks. Coupled with similarity evaluation software, the similarities between each fingerprint of the sample and the simulative mean chromatogram were in the range of 0.998-1.000. Then, the chemometric techniques, including similarity analysis, hierarchical clustering analysis and principal component analysis were applied to classify the ginger samples.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Consistent results were obtained to show that ginger samples could be successfully classified into two groups. This study revealed that HPLC-PDA method was simple, sensitive and reliable for fingerprint analysis, and moreover, for pattern recognition and quality control of ginger.
authors.affiliation: School of Pharmacy, Jiangsu University , Zhenjiang , China and.
authors.forename: Xu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Weijun
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Kong
authors.forename: Jianhe
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Zhen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ou-Yang
authors.forename: Meihua
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal / Q000737:chemistry; D020939:Zingiber officinale / Q000737:chemistry*; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D011786:Quality Control; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D027343:Rhizome; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal