Simultaneous Quantification of Eight Bioactive Markers Coupled With HPLC Fingerprint and Chemometric Analysis for Quality Discrimination of Saposhnikovia divaricata From Diverse Geographical Origins

Saposhnikovia divaricata (SD, Chinese name: Fangfeng) is a commonly used herbal medicine in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), yet unclear chemical profiling and remarkable quality heterogeneity among commercial batches restrict its standardized quality supervision. This study established an integrated strategy combining high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) fingerprinting and multivariate chemometrics to quantify bioactive compounds and discriminate geographical origins of SD. Eight bioactive markers including four chromones and four coumarins were unambiguously assigned among 18 shared characteristic fingerprint peaks. Obvious disparities in target compound contents were observed between geographically distinct samples. Fingerprint similarity results confirmed overall chemical consistency across all batches, accompanied by intra-region quality fluctuation. Geographical habitats exerted prominent effects on the accumulation of eight target constituents in SD. Combined hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) models successfully separated batches from different habitats, and three differential markers (prim-O-glucosylcimifugin, cimifugin, and imperatorin) were screened to interpret regional chemical divergence. In conclusion, this study provides an experimental foundation for drug quality control and the discovery of quality markers for SD. Imperatorin can be supplemented to construct a multi-index comprehensive quality evaluation system for SD.