Correlation Maps Madder Fingerprints And Antioxidant Activity

In this paper, the roots of Rubia cordifolia commonly called “Qian Cao” wastaken as the object of the study. An approach based on antioxidant fingerprint-efficacyrelationship and TLC bioautography assay was developed. It can provide an easymethod to evaluate the quality of “Qian Cao”, a kind of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM).First, chemical fingerprints of20batches of different sources of Rubia cordifoliawere established by HPLC. The antioxidant activities of these samples were evaluatedby DPPH assay and FRAP assay. Then, five active components from fingerprint peakswere determined by both multiple correlation analysis and TLC bioautography assay.Similarity analysis and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) based on these activepeaks were chosen to evaluate the quality of Rubia cordifolia from different sources.The samples with similarities below0.9had poorer antioxidant activities and thosehaving stronger activities fell into the same cluster in HCA. Finally, five batches ofcommercial samples were processed in the same way to verify the feasibility of thismethod. The results suggested that chemical fingerprinting combined with similarityanalysis based on fingerprint–efficacy relationship and TLC bioautography couldevaluate the antioxidant activity of Rubia cordifolia from various sources. Theestablished technique would also provide reference to evaluate the quality of otherTCMs.