| Abstract:[Abstract] Objective: This paper aims to establish the high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) characteristic chromatogram and a multi-component content determination method for Qixuekang Oral Liquid and to evaluate its quality using chemical pattern recognition. Methods: HPLC-ultraviolet (UV) and HPLC-evaporative light scattering detection (ELSD) methods were used to establish the HPLC characteristic chromatograms of 24 batches of Qixuekang Oral Liquid. The contents of six components, including astragaloside IV, calycosin-7-O-β-D-glucoside, ginsenoside Rb1, ginsenoside Rg1, notoginsenoside R1, and puerarin, were simultaneously determined. Chemical pattern recognition was further applied to screen the key components affecting its quality. Results: A total of 24 common peaks were identified in the HPLC characteristic chromatogram of Qixuekang Oral Liquid established by HPLC-UV, and the similarities between the HPLC characteristic chromatograms of 24 batches of Qixuekang Oral Liquid and the reference characteristic chromatogram were all higher than 0.96. Ten common peaks were confirmed in the HPLC characteristic chromatograms established by HPLC-ELSD. With peak 4 set as the reference peak, the relative standard deviations (RSDs) of the relative retention time of nine common peaks ranged from 0.16% to 0.61%. Six components were identified by comparison with reference samples, namely astragaloside Ⅳ, calycosin-7-O-β-D-glucoside, ginsenoside Rb1, ginsenoside Rg1, notoginsenoside R1, and puerarin. The results of the linear relationship investigation for the determination of the above six components show that good linear relationships exist among mass concentrations of the six components within their corresponding concentration ranges. Precision and stability tests show that the RSDs of both peak areas and their logarithm (ln) for the six components are all less than 3.2%. Repeatability tests indicate that the RSDs of the six component contents are all less than 3.0%. The results show that spike recoveries of the six components range from 97.72% to 105.40%, with RSDs of 0.42%–4.00%. Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and principal component analysis (PCA) results show that 24 batches of Qixuekang Oral Liquid are divided into two categories. Orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) results show that three key components exerting major influences on quality (ginsenoside Rg1, ginsenoside Rb1, and notoginsenoside R1) are screened out, based on variable importance in projection (VIP) value greater than 1. Conclusion: The established HPLC characteristic chromatograms and multi-component content determination method in this study are simple and accurate. Combined with chemical pattern recognition, they can provide a reference for the quality control of Qixuekang Oral Liquid. |