DETERMINATION OF QUALITY CONTROL MARKERS IN COMMERCIAL RHODIOLA PRODUCTS USING FINGERPRINT-EFFICACY RELATIONSHIP MODELLING

Abstract

Hong jing tian is a Traditional Chinese Medicine derived from Rhodiola species. It is commonly used for revitalizing the body and promoting blood circulation. Traditionally, quality control of natural products uses advanced analytical instruments to generate a chemical fingerprint profile. However, this is insufficient to provide reliable quality control as it cannot reflect the efficacy of the product. To identify relevant quality control markers that contributes significantly to the antioxidant effects of Rhodiola species, a fingerprint-efficacy model, which compares the fingerprint profiles and antioxidant capacity of six commercial Rhodiola products, is proposed. The fingerprint profile is developed using liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight while antioxidant capacity is analysed by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging assay. Using multivariate statistical analysis to find correlation between fingerprint profile and high antioxidant capacity, three compounds that contribute significantly for antioxidant capacity are identified. These three compounds, namely rhodiosin, rhodionin and 1,2,3,4,6-pentakis-O-galloyl-beta-D-glucose, can be used as marker compounds for quality control of commercial Rhodiola products.