Comparison of triterpene compounds of four botanical parts from Poria cocos (Schw.) wolf using simultaneous qualitative and quantitative method and metabolomics approach

Abstract Poria cocos (Schw.) Wolf (PCW) is a widely used traditional Chinese medicine and dietary supplement. Its four parts including Poriae Cutis (PC), Rubra Poria (RP), White Poria (WP) and Poria cum Radix Pini (PRP) have different pharmacological effects and clinical applications. It is necessary to establish analytical platforms for differentiating the chemical composition of four botanical parts for the rational utilization. We established a simultaneous qualitative and quantitative method based on UHPLC-MS combined metabolomics approach to give an explanation of the distribution of triterpene compounds in four parts. Eight triterpene compounds were determined absolutely and a total of 51 triterpene compounds were tentatively identified in PCW. PC and PRP showed a quite clear discrimination by the principal component analysis (PCA) and orthogonal projections to latent structures-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) and twelve differential compounds were found. Four compounds including poricoic acid D, 16α-hydroxydehydrotrametenolic acid, 3-epidehydrotumulosic acid, 25-hydroxypolyporenic acid C were speculated to be related to diuretic effects.