Study on Senna alata and its different extracts by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and two-dimensional correlation infrared spectroscopy

Senna alata L. commonly known as candle bush belongs to the family of Fabaceae and the plant has been reported to possess anti-inflammatory, analgesic, laxative and antiplatelet-aggregating activity. In order to develop a rapid and effective analysis method for studying integrally the main constituents in the medicinal materials and their extracts, discriminating the extracts from different extraction process, comparing the categories of chemical constituents in the different extracts and monitoring the qualities of medicinal materials, we applied Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) associated with second derivative infrared spectroscopy and two-dimensional infrared correlation spectroscopy (2D-IR) to study the main constituents of S. alata and its different extracts (extracted by hexane, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate and methanol in turn). The findings indicated that FT-IR and 2D-IR can provide many holistic variation rules of chemical constituents. Use of the macroscopical fingerprint characters of FT-IR and 2D-IR spectrum can identify the main chemical constituents in medicinal materials and their extracts, but also compare the components differences among similar samples. In a conclusion, FT-IR spectroscopy combined with 2D correlation analysis provides a powerful method for the quality control of traditional medicines.