Monitoring the quality consistency of Weibizhi tablets by micellar electrokinetic chromatography fingerprints combined with multivariate statistical analyses, the simple quantified ratio fingerprint method, and the fingerprint-efficacy relationship

Advances in Fingerprint Analysis for Standardization and Quality Control of Herbal Medicines

Herbal drugs or herbal medicines (HMs) have a long-standing history as natural remedies for preventing and curing diseases. HMs have garnered greater interest during the past decades due to their broad, synergistic actions on the physiological systems and relatively lower incidence of adverse events, compared to synthetic drugs. However, assuring reproducible quality, efficacy, and safety from herbal drugs remains a challenging task. HMs typically consist of many constituents whose presence and quantity may vary among different sources of materials. Fingerprint analysis has emerged as a very useful technique to assess the quality of herbal drug materials and formulations for establishing standardized herbal products. Rather than using a single or two marker(s), fingerprinting techniques take great consideration of the complexity of herbal drugs by evaluating the whole chemical profile and extracting a common pattern to be set as a criterion for assessing the individual material or formulation. In this review, we described and assessed various fingerprinting techniques reported to date, which are applicable to the standardization and quality control of HMs. We also evaluated the application of multivariate data analysis or chemometrics in assisting the analysis of the complex datasets from the determination of HMs. To ensure that these methods yield reliable results, we reviewed the validation status of the methods and provided perspectives on those. Finally, we concluded by highlighting major accomplishments and presenting a gap analysis between the existing techniques and what is needed to continue moving forward.

Recent advances of novel technologies for quality consistency assessment of natural herbal medicines and preparations

Quality consistency is one of the basic attributes of medicines, but it is also a difficult problem that natural medicines and their preparations must face. The complex chemical composition and comprehensive pharmacological action of natural medicines make it difficult to simply apply the commonly used evaluation methods in chemical drugs. It is thus urgent to explore the novel evaluation methods suitable for the characteristics of natural medicines. With the rapid development of analytical techniques and the deepening understanding of the quality of natural herbs, increasing numbers of researchers have proposed many new ideas and technologies. This review mainly focuses on the basic principles, technical characteristics and application examples of the chemical evaluation, biological evaluation methods and their combination in quality consistency evaluation of natural herbs. On the bases of chemical evaluation and clinical efficacy, new methods reflecting their pharmacodynamic mechanism and safety characteristics will be developed, and gradually towards accurate quality control, to achieve the goal of quality consistency. We hope that this manuscript can provide new ideas and technical references for the quality consistency of natural drugs and their preparations, thus better guarantee their clinical efficacy and safety, and better promote industrial development.

Quality consistency evaluation of Isatidis Folium combined with equal weight quantified ratio fingerprint method and determination of antioxidant activity

Isatidis Folium has been known as a valuable traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years. Little attention, however, has been paid to its quality control. The aim of the present study was to establish a novel strategy to monitor and assess the quality consistency of Isatidis Folium. First, 20 samples were separated and identified simultaneously by high-performance liquid chromatography in an effective, quick and sensitive way. Then, Single-wavelength fingerprint was fused into multi-wavelength fingerprints to show fingerprints' information thoroughly. The similarity analyses of fingerprints were performed by equal weight quantified ration fingerprint method in terms of qualitative and quantitative aspects. The evaluation result showed that 20 batches of samples were classified into different grades. In addition, the relationship between fingerprints and antioxidant activity were investigated by partial least-squares model, which offered significant medicinal efficacy information for quality control. This comprehensive strategy provided a valuable reference for Isatidis Folium to ameliorate their quality control.

Microemulsion Electrokinetic Chromatography in Combination with Chemometric Methods to Evaluate the Holistic Quality Consistency and Predict the Antioxidant Activity of Ixeris sonchifolia (Bunge) Hance Injection

In this paper, microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography (MEEKC) fingerprints combined with quantification were successfully developed to monitor the holistic quality consistency of Ixeris sonchifolia (Bge.) Hance Injection (ISHI). ISHI is a Chinese traditional patent medicine used for its anti-inflammatory and hemostatic effects. The effects of five crucial experimental variables on MEEKC were optimized by the central composite design. Under the optimized conditions, the MEEKC fingerprints of 28 ISHIs were developed. Quantitative determination of seven marker compounds was employed simultaneously, then 28 batches of samples from two manufacturers were clearly divided into two clusters by the principal component analysis. In fingerprint assessments, a systematic quantitative fingerprint method was established for the holistic quality consistency evaluation of ISHI from qualitative and quantitative perspectives, by which the qualities of 28 samples were well differentiated. In addition, the fingerprint—efficacy relationship between the fingerprints and the antioxidant activities was established utilizing orthogonal projection to latent structures, which provided important medicinal efficacy information for quality control. The present study offered a powerful and holistic approach to evaluating the quality consistency of herbal medicines and their preparations.

A comprehensive strategy to monitor quality consistency of Weibizhi tablets based on integrated MIR and UV spectroscopic fingerprints, a systematically quantified fingerprint method, antioxidant activities and UPLC-Q-TOF-MS chemical profiling

A combination strategy of MIR and UV spectroscopic fingerprinting was applied to monitor HM quality consistency in Weibizhi tablets.