Quantitative and chemical fingerprint analysis for the quality evaluation of Receptaculum Nelumbinis by RP-HPLC coupled with hierarchical clustering analysis.

A simple and reliable method of high-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detection (HPLC-DAD) was developed to evaluate the quality of Receptaculum Nelumbinis (dried receptacle of Nelumbo nucifera) through establishing chromatographic fingerprint and simultaneous determination of five flavonol glycosides, including hyperoside, isoquercitrin, quercetin-3-O-β-d-glucuronide, isorhamnetin-3-O-β-d-galactoside and syringetin-3-O-β-d-glucoside. In quantitative analysis, the five components showed good regression (R > 0.9998) within linear ranges, and their recoveries were in the range of 98.31%-100.32%. In the chromatographic fingerprint, twelve peaks were selected as the characteristic peaks to assess the similarities of different samples collected from different origins in China according to the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) requirements. Furthermore, hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) was also applied to evaluate the variation of chemical components among different sources of Receptaculum Nelumbinis in China. This study indicated that the combination of quantitative and chromatographic fingerprint analysis can be readily utilized as a quality control method for Receptaculum Nelumbinis and its related traditional Chinese medicinal preparations.