Fast classification and compositional analysis of polysaccharides from TCMs by ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with multivariate analysis

A reversed-phase ultra-performance liquid chromatographic (UPLC) method is described for the simultaneous determination of aldoses and uronic acids. The separation was carried out on a UPLC™ HSS T3 column (100 mm × 2.1 mm, 1.7 μm) using precolumn derivatization with 1-phenyl-3-methyl-5-pyrazolone (PMP) and UV detection at 250 nm, and 9 PMP derivatives of mannose, ribose, rhamnose, glucuronic acid, galacturonic acid, glucose, xylose, galactose and arabinose were baseline separated within 5.5 min. Furthermore, the described method was successfully applied to the quantitative analysis of component monosaccharides in polysaccharides extracted from traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs). The results demonstrated the proposed UPLC method was precise and practical for the analysis of TCM polysaccharides. Finally, principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) were used to classify and differentiate 30 polysaccharide samples from five TCMs to provide the basis for guiding reasonable use of TCM polysaccharides and controlling their quality better.