Quality Evaluation of Flowers of Prunus Lannesiana Var. Speciosa Cv. Shin-Sumizome Based on Fingerprints Combined with Chemical Pattern Recognition and Identification of Chemical Components

Dried samples of Prunus lannesiana var. speciosa cv. Shin-sumizome were taken, crushed, and sieved, and an aliquot (0.500 g) was taken into 25 mL of 70% (volume fraction, the same below) methanol solution. The mixture was sonicated for 30 min, and cooled to room temperature. The weight of the above solution was made up by 70% methanol solution. After shaking evenly, the mixed solution was passed through a 0.22 μm filter membrane. The subsequent filtrate was determined according to the operating conditions of the instrument. Fingerprints of 10 batches of samples from different harvesting periods were collected by high performance liquid chromatography, and quality evaluation of the 10 batches of samples was made by combining similarity analysis and chemical pattern recognition. Identification of chemical components in samples was made based on ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-linear ion trap/electrostatic orbitrap mass spectrometry. It was shown that 8 common components were screened by comparing the fingerprints of 10 batches of samples, and 2 common components, chlorogenic acid and rutin, were determined through comparison with reference standards. The similarity between the fingerprints of 10 batches of samples and the reference fingerprint was greater than 0.980, indicating that the quality of samples from different harvesting periods was relatively stable. Importing peak areas of 8 common peaks into SPSS 21.0 software and SIMCA 14.1 software, 10 batches of samples were classified into 4 categories by systematic clustering analysis, principal component analysis, and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) models, and the classification results were completely consistent. Using variable importance projection analysis to screen for biomarkers that caused quality differences, a total of three components were identified. Through mass spectrometry library and literature comparison, 48 chemical components were identified, including 19 flavonoids, 18 organic acids, 4 terpenes, and 7 other classes.