Analysis of Angelica sinensis at different growth stages by 1H NMR-based metabolic fingerprinting combined with chemometrics

The metabolite fingerprint analysis was performed using ¹H NMR spectroscopy was adopted for systematically evaluate the Angelica sinensis metabolite profile analysis in diverse growth periods, along with the identification of the metabolites, so as to analyze changes in Angelica sinensis secondary metabolites during growth. This aims at analyzing changes in Angelica sinensis secondary metabolites during growth. Metabolic profiles were analyzed through ¹H NMR spectroscopy, meanwhile, crude extracts in the root of Angelica sinensis were analyzed in terms of multivariate data. ¹H NMR chemical shifts were compared with those of available reference standards to identify metabolites. Principal component analyses (PCA) together with partial least-squares discriminate analysis (PLS-DA) on ¹H NMR data clearly separated different year's samples by components axis. According to this study, Angelica sinensis secondary metabolite accumulation was tightly associated with growth periods, demonstrating that metabolomics might be used in the natural health product Angelica sinensis. The ¹H NMR-based metabolomics technology may be used to explore changes in Angelica sinensis secondary metabolites in the process of growth. As revealed by ¹H NMR metabolite fingerprinting in combination with chemometric analysis, some substances like ferulic acid, ligustilide, levistilide A and sugars could be quality assurance markers for Angelica sinensis.