Comprehensive Analysis of Sinomenii caulis and Menispermi rhizoma Based on Ultra‐High Performance Liquid Chromatography and Ultra‐High Performance Liquid Chromatography‐Quadrupole Time‐of‐Flight‐Mass Spectrometry

Sinomenii caulis (SC) and Menispermi rhizoma (MR) are Chinese herbal medicines from the same family and are often confused. To achieve identification of SC and MR, the paper used the differential chemical components and the combination characteristics of chemical components to carry out a comprehensive analysis. First, the fingerprints of SC and MR were established separately using the ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) to screen the differential characteristic components. Furthermore, UPLC-Quadrupole time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (UPLC-QTOF-MS) analysis was carried out on SC and MR to acquire the digital matrix of chemical components (DMCCs) for characterizing SC and MR, respectively. Finally, the DMCCs of SC and MR were used for identification. The results of UPLC fingerprints showed good similarity among different batches of the same medicinal material. SC contains sinomenine (C₁₉H₂₃NO₄), and MR contains dauricine (C₃₈H₄₄N₂O₆). A new identification method was further established based on UPLC-QTOF-MS and DMCC. This method successfully achieved the differentiation of SC from MR, and the detection results showed a correlation trend for samples with different adulteration ratios. Finally, with the MS (28%) of the sample adulterated with 3% MR as the limit, effective identification of 10 batches of blind samples was realized. Based on UPLC fingerprint and DMCC, the identification of SC and MR can be achieved with high quality and efficiency. It helps the authenticity identification of SC.