Quality assessment of Psoralea fructus by HPLC fingerprint coupled with multi-components analysis

Psoralea Fructus, the dried and ripe fruit of Psoralea corylifolia L., have been used as traditional medicine. There is substantial evidence that multiple constituents are responsible for the beneficial effects of this medicine. To effectively control the quality of this herbal medicine, HPLC fingerprint analysis was performed on a SinoChrom ODS-BP column with mobile phase of a gradient prepared from H2O and CH3CN, which the conditions used for gradient elution were: 0-10 min, 5-45% CH3CN; 10-45 min, 45-70% CH3CN; 45-50 min, 70-100% CH3CN; 50-60 min, 100-100% CH3CN, and the flow rate was 1.0 ml/min. It was obtained on the basis of the chromatographic data from 28 batches of samples, which contained 26 common peaks and 13 peaks were identified by the electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry as psoralen, isopsoralen, isobavachin, neobavaisoflavone, bavachin, corylin, broussochalcone B, psoralidin, isobavachalcone, bavachinin, corylifol A, bavachalcone and backuchiol. The contents of these 13 compounds were also simultaneously examined. By using principal component analysis, 28 batches of samples collected from 6 producing locations with different collecting time were evaluated and differentiated. In summary, the data as described in this study offer valuable information for quality control and proper use of Psoralea Fructus.