Quality assessment of Fructus Ligustri Lucidi by the simultaneous determination of six compounds and chemometric analysis

A comprehensive strategy was designed for the quality assessment of Fructus Ligustri Lucidi, a well‐known and commonly used herbal medicine in clinical practice in China. First, a simple and stable method of high‐performance liquid chromatography was developed for the simultaneous quantitative analysis of six compounds, namely, salidroside, nuzhenide, specnuezhenide, oleanic acid, ursolic acid, and acetyl oleanic acid in Fructus Ligustri Lucidi. The separation of analytes was conducted on a C₁₈ column (200 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 μm) at 30°C, and the wavelength of UV detector was set at 210 nm. In quantitative analysis, all of the calibration curves showed good linear regression (R² > 0.9994) within the tested ranges, and the mean recoveries of three different concentrations ranged from 95.21–102.34%. The described method was applied to determine 11 batches of samples collected from different stores in China. Then multiple chemometrics analysis including hierarchical cluster analysis and principal component analysis were performed to classify samples and search significant compounds. Three notable compounds, specnuezhenide, oleanic acid, and acetyl oleanic acid, were discovered for better quality control compared with those stated in the China pharmacopeia. The results demonstrated that this strategy could be readily utilized for the comprehensive quality control of Fructus Ligustri Lucidi.