Evaluation of the influence of sulfur-fumigated paeoniae radix alba on the quality of Si Wu tang by chromatographic and chemometric analysis

An accurate and reliable method of high-performance liquid chromatographic fingerprint combining with multi-ingredient determination was developed and validated to evaluate the influence of sulfur-fumigated paeoniae radix alba on the quality and chemical constituents of si wu tang. multivariate data analysis including hierarchical cluster analysis and principal component analysis,which integrated with high-performance liquid chromatographic fingerprint and multi-ingredient determination,was employed to evaluate si wu tang in a more objective and scientific way. interestingly,in this paper,a total of 37 and 36 peaks were marked as common peaks in ten batches of si wu tang containing sun-dried paeoniae radix alba and ten batches of si wu tang containing sulfur-fumigated paeoniae radix alba,respectively,which indicated the changed fingerprint profile of si wu tang when containing sulfur-fumigated herb. furthermore,the results of simultaneous determination for multiple ingredients showed that the contents of albiflorin and paeoniflorin decreased significantly (p < 0.01) and the contents of gallic acid and z-ligustilide decreased to some extent at the same time when si wu tang contained sulfur-fumigated paeoniae radix alba. therefore,sulfur-fumigation processing may have great influence on the quality of chinese herbal prescription. © 2016 ke pei et al.