Quality control of Schizonepeta tenuifolia Briq by solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and principal component analysis

The chemical composition of Schizonepeta tenuifolia Briq. (Sch.t.Briq.) is mainly composed of several volatile substances that affect multiple pharmacological targets and provide clinical efficacy. In this work, a headspace/solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC/MS) method was developed to evaluate the profiles of volatile compounds in Sch.t.Briq. The optimization of SPME conditions was carried out using four kinds of fiber, extraction time and temperature, desorption temperature and time, and sample amount. The GC/MS analysis allowed the tentative identification of 21 compounds, with similarities higher than 85%, in accordance with the NIST/Wiley mass spectral library. Major components such as (+)-menthone (14.32%), (−)-pulegone (47.73%), 2-hydroxy-2-isopropenyl-5-methylcyclohexane (5.97%), cis-pulegone oxide (4.12%), and schizonal (5.36%) were identified by comparison of retention time and mass spectral data of standards isolated from Sch.t.Briq. The contents of these compounds were about above 78% against total amounts of volatile compounds extracted from Sch.t.Briq. Based on optimized SPME method, 19 different Sch.t.Briq. samples collected from markets in Korea and China were analyzed to obtain the profiling data of volatile compounds. In addition, principal component analysis (PCA) was performed on the profiling data in order to classify the samples collected from the different regions. PCA could possibly visualize the grouping tendencies of the studied varieties of herbal samples, as well as the identification of the volatiles responsible for discriminating the groups.