Chromatographic fingerprint analysis—a rational approach for quality assessment of traditional Chinese herbal medicine

Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine (TCHM) contain multiple botanicals, each of which contains many compounds that may be relevant to the medicine's putative activity. Therefore, analytical techniques that look at a suite of compounds, including their respective ratios, provide a more rational approach to the authentication and quality assessment of TCHM. In this paper we present several examples of applying chromatographic fingerprint analysis for determining the identity, stability, and consistency of TCHM as well as the identification of adulterants as follows: (1) species authentication of various species of ginseng (Panax ginseng, Panax quinquefolium, Panax noto-ginseng) and stability of ginseng preparations using high performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) fingerprint analysis; (2) batch-to-batch consistency of extracts of Total Glycosides of Peony (TGP), to be used as a raw material and in finished products (TGP powdered extract products), using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) fingerprint analysis with a pattern recognition software interface (CASE); (3) documenting the representative HPLC fingerprints of Immature Fruits of Terminalia chebula (IFTC) through the assessment of raw material, in-process assay of the extracts, and the analysis of the finished product (tablets); (4) HPLC fingerprint study demonstrating the consistent quality of total flavonoids of commercial extracts of ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) leaves (EGb) along with detection of adulterations. The experimental conditions as well as general comments on the application of chromatographic fingerprint analysis are discussed.