Quality control of Chinese herbal medicines with chromatographic fingerprint

The applications of chromatographic fingerprint in the quality control of Chinese herbal medicines (CHMs), such as chemical fingerprint in authentication of CHMs, profile-effect, biofingerprint, and metabolic fingerprint in efficacy evaluation of CHMs, are reviewed. In recent quality control systems of CHMs, chemical fingerprinting is a powerful technology in authentication of CHMs. Profile-effect, biofingerprint and metabolic fingerprint are essential in the efficient evaluation of CHMs because of their correlations with pharmacological activities. Furthermore, the application of chromatographic fingerprint in safety evaluation of CHMs has been taken very seriously.