Discrimination of Lonicerae Japonicae Flos according to species, growth mode, processing method, and geographical origin with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography analysis and chemical pattern recognition.

Lonicerae japonicae flos (LJF, Lonicera japonica Thunb.) is often confused and/or adulterated with Lonicerae flos (LF, Lonicera macrantha (D.Don) Spreng.). Ecological conditions and processing methods strongly influenced the safety and efficacy of LJF. For the strict quality control of LJF, a rapid and feasible strategy for identification and classification of LJF by species, growth mode, processing method and geographical origin, based on chromatographic profiles and pattern recognition analysis, in 119 batches of Lonicera samples was systematically established. Firstly, comprehensive analysis of the chemical compositions of LJF was achieved using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC). Next, unsupervised principal component analysis showed that the influence of species, growth mode, processing method and geographical origin displayed a decreasing trend. Subsequently, classification models for authentication of LJF samples were established by linear discriminant analysis (LDA) with good classification abilities. Finally, sweroside and secoxyloganin could be considered as markers associated of cultivated and wild LJF, respectively, while 3-O-caffeoylquinic acid and 3,5-Di-O-caffeoylquinic acid could be regarded as markers for LF. Consequently, the findings suggest that UHPLC profiles combined with pattern recognition analysis is precise and feasible strategy for the discrimination and quality control of LJF.