QUALITY CONTROL OF FRITILLARIA UNIBRACTEATA BY UPLC-PAD FINGERPRINT COMBINED WITH HIERARCHICAL CLUSTERING ANALYSIS

A simple and reliablemethod of ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with a photodiode array detector (UPLC-PAD) was developed for the quantitative analysis of 10 active nucleosides and nucleobases. The separation was performed on a reversed-phase C18 column with linear gradient elution. This method provided good reproducibility and sensitivity with excellent intra-and inter-day precision and the validated method was successfully used for the determination of the 10 components of interest of F. unibracteata samples. The quantitative data of the fingerprints were analyzed by similarity analysis (SA) and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA). Results showed that samples from different regions could be successfully divided into two groups in accordance with their locations of origin. A rapid and convenient discriminatory function using UPLC fingerprint combined with HCA was then established to differentiate the F. unibracteata from different growing regions, which could be helpful for quality evaluation and control of F. unibracteata and related medicinal plants in the future.