A Study of Quality Evaluation of Radix Astragali with High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Diode Array Detector (HPLC-DAD) Chromatographic Fingerprints and Clustering Analysis

Objective To establish high performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector (HPLC-DAD) chromatographic fingerprints of Radix astragali and its relative herbs,and the evaluation methods of similarity calculation and clustering analysis were adopted to assess drug quality.Methods The chromatography conditions were:Agilent Zorbax SB C18 column (4.6 mm×250.0 mm,5.0 μm);mobile phase was A:ACN-MeOH (9:1 V/V),B was H2O,gradient elution,flow speed was 1.0 ml/min,temperature of column was 25℃,injection volume was 20 μl.The validation of the method was confirmed,and applied similarity calculation and clustering analysis were carried out.Results HPLC-DAD chromatographic fingerprints of Radix astragali showed better results of stability,precision and reproducibility,and 11 common peaks were demarcated.The results of similarity calculation were more than 0.85,which was in accordance with the results of clustering analysis.Conclusion The similarity calculation and clustering analysis can effectively distinguish Radix astragali with relative herbs,which can make the chromatographic fingerprints more practicable and applicable.