Study On The Correlation Between The Color Traits And Quality Types Of Poria Cocos And Commercial Products In Guizhou Province

A new strategy based on color metrics and chemical fingerprint analysis is proposed to assess the quality of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), and Smilacis Glabrae Rhizoma (SGR) was used as model herb to test the accuracy and feasibility of the method. Samples of the same species were divided into two categories based on cross-section:red (R-SGR) and white (W-SGR). Samples were photographed. Then, color was quantized by RGB using Photoshop. Ultra-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-EIC-TOF-MS) was used for fingerprint analysis. Using hierarchical clustering, samples were divided into two classes by color, color A and B (CLA, CLB), and into two classes, chemical A and B (CHA, CHB), according to chemical composition. Using chromatograms of CHA and CHB, standard fingerprint chromatogram were established. The color and chemical data were converted to two single-variables by dimension reduction. The result of correlation shows a strong link. The case of RSG indicated that the conventional quality control methods could use some modern scientific method to research.The appearance of TCM materials plays an important role in quality control of TCM, and the color is one of the most important quality indicator. In this study, color was measured by instrumental made the color of R-SGR and W-SGR be quantified exactly, and the result of fingerprint chromatograms indicated that the variation of color represent the different quality of SGR. Standard fingerprint chromatograms which can stand the two classification quality of RSG were created too. A feasible method be provided to research the correlation of appearance and quality, the research of RSG is a succeed case in this study...