Identification and Evaluation of Different Roots of Ophiopogon Japonicus

Abstract: The tuberous root of Ophiopogon japonicus is a traditional Chinese medicine, with the main function of moistening the lungs, nourishing yin, generating fluids, and relieving coughs. The fibrous root was connected to the tuberous root, but as a non-medicinal part, it has been discarded. However, due to the shortage of Ophiopogon japonicus resources and might be due to similarities in color and smell, fibrous roots tend to be used as tuberous roots to relieve the pressure of demand. So, Ophiopogon japonicus might suffer from quality inconsistencies. To address these challenges, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) chemical quantitative fingerprinting was adopted to evaluate and discriminate the fibrous root and tuberous root from the whole chemical profile level. In this sample extraction procedure, chromatographic conditions were optimized to obtain a comprehensive and detailed metabolomic fingerprint. Furthermore, hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA), gray relational analysis (GRA), PCA (principal components analysis) and PLS-DA (partial least squares discriminant analysis), were used to evaluate and distinguish the different parts of Ophiopogon japonicus from Leshan. The results showed that there were significant differences in the content of bioactive components between tuberous roots and fibrous roots. This research provides a new insight into quality control and comprehensive evaluation of different parts of Ophiopogon japonicus