Discrimination of extracted lipophilic constituents of Angelica with multi-steps infrared macro-fingerprint method

It is the most pressing task that fast and effective analysis methods monitor the inherent qualities of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and its corresponding extract products as a complicated mixture system. Owing to the unique fingerprint character and extensive applicability to test sample, infrared spectral method has been used in many research fields. In recent years, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), accompanied with the development of spectroscopic technology and combined with computer science, plays an important role in the TCM research. In this paper, we use FT-IR, second derivative infrared spectroscopy and two-dimensional correlation infrared spectroscopy (2D-IR) step by step to analyze the lipophilic constituents in Angelica extracted by two different extract crafts. As a result, all spectra can not only supply lots of structural information of main constituents in the complicated system, but also can differentiate the tiny differences between the similar systems according to the infrared macro-fingerprint characters. This is a very quick, effective and well repetitive method for monitoring the process of the TCM. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.