Objective:To establish the HPLC fingerprint method for assessing the quality of Moutan Cortex, and to determine the contents of paeonol, paeoniflorin, gallic acid, hydroxyl-paeoniflorin and benzoyl-paeoniflorin of Moutan Cortex in different growth period. Methods:Diamonsil Plus C18 column (250 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 μm) was used with the mobile phase comprising acetonitrile-0.05% formic acid solution and the flow rate of 1.0 ml/min with gradient elution manner. The detected wavelength was 230 nm for paeoniflorin and benzoyl-paeoniflorin, 267 nm for gallic acid, 258 nm for hydroxyl-paeoniflorin and 274 nm for paeonol with temperature column of 25 ℃. Then putting chromatograms into Similarity Evaluation System for Chromatographic Fingerprint of Chinese Materia Medica (2012A) to evaluate the similarity of Moutan Cortex in different growth period; then putting peak area data into SPSS software for cluster analysis and the clustering effect was determined. Results:The HPLC fingerprints established with this method has 23 shared peaks and 5 of them were identified, namely, paeonol, paeoniflorin, gallic acid, hydroxyl-paeoniflorin and benzoylpaeoniflorin. The similarity of Moutan Cortex in different years was between 0.850-0.991. This method has good linear relation ( r≥0.999 5), RSDs of precision, stability tests and reproducibility were lower than 1.6% ( n=6). Different growth periods of Moutan Cortex have obvious influence on the concentration of five compounds. Conclusion:This method is useful to evaluate and discriminate Moutan Cortex at different growth periods so as toprovide scientific reference on the harvest,industrialization and evaluation of Moutan Cortex.

Objective:To develop a method for simultaneous determination of the contents of geniposide, hesperidin, baicalin, liquiritin, glycyrrhetinic acid, glycyrrhizic and schizandrin in Ermu-Ningsou Pills by ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) with wavelength switching. Methods:The analyses were carried out on an Phenomenex Kinetex C18 column (4.6 mm×100 mm, 2.7 μm) with the mobile phase consisting of methanol(A)-0.05% phosphoric acid (B) in a gradient mode at a flow rate of 0.6 ml/min. The detection wavelength was set at 237 nm for geniposide, liquiritin, glycyrrhetinic acid and glycyrrhizic, 280 nm for baicalin and hesperidin, 250 nm for schizandrin. The column temperature was set at 35 ℃ and the injection volume was 2 μl.Results:The linear relation of geniposide, hesperidin, baicalin, liquiritin, glycyrrhetinic acid, glycyrrhizic and schizandrin were excellent within the range of 10.294-205.888, 4.552-91.036, 6.212-124.248, 8.974-179.484, 2.629-52.580, 5.371-107.416, 8.905-178.104 ng ( r≥0.999 5, n=6). Average recoveries were 98.47%, 99.04%, 100.76%, 98.27%, 100.50%, 98.79%, 99.37% ( RSD<2.0%, n=6). RSDs of precision, reproducibility and stability tests (24 h) were lower than 2.0% ( n=6). Conclusions:The method is simple, effective, accurate. It can be used for simultaneous determination of 7 active constituents in Ermu-Ningsou Pills.