title: Method to evaluate the quality of herbal medicines based on the dynamic changes of chemical compounds and pharmacological activity.
abstract: Quality control has been one of the key scientific issues in the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine. This study explored a novel method for quality evaluation of herbal medicines. High-performance liquid chromatography fingerprints and the osteoblast proliferation activity of 18 batches of Achyranthes bidentata, which were prepared with salt, were determined to establish a chromatographic database and an activity database. Correlation analyses of these databases were performed using partial least squares to obtain regression coefficients (positive and negative correlation coefficients). Then, the sums of the products of the positive and negative correlation peak areas and the corresponding coefficients, respectively, were calculated for each sample. The absolute value of the ratios of the sums of the positive and negative products were calculated, our studies showed that this ratio was significantly correlated with the proliferation activity, particularly when the activity was in the best and worst ranges. Therefore, we developed a parameter that was used to evaluate the quality of samples osteoblast proliferation activity. The quality of another ten batches of samples was assessed to verify this method. The results indicated that this method can be used for quality evaluation of herbal medicines according to the dynamic changes in the chemical compounds and activity.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicines, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Pei-Pei
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical and Biological Marine Resources Research and Development of Jiangsu Province, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Lin
authors.initials: XL
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicines, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Chun-Feng
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicines, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Zhong-Lin
authors.initials: ZL
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicines, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, P. R. China. lifeicpu@163.com.
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D002460:Cell Line; D049109:Cell Proliferation / Q000187:drug effects; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical / Q000379:methods*; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal / Q000032:analysis* / Q000494:pharmacology; D029001:Herbal Medicine; D006801:Humans; D010946:Plants, Medicinal / Q000737:chemistry*; D011786:Quality Control
chemical_list: D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal
keywords: Achyranthis bidentatae radix; High-performance liquid chromatography fingerprints; Osteoblast cells; Partial least squares; Quality evaluation