Comparative Investigation for Raw and Processed Products of Euodiae Fructus Based on High‐Performance Liquid Chromatography Fingerprints and Chemical Pattern Recognition

Abstract As a traditional Chinese medicine, Euodiae Fructus is widely used due to its analgesic, anti‐inflammatory, and antihypertensive effects. However, Euodiae Fructus has also been documented to be toxic, and the toxic effects can be reduced by processing. To distinguish Euodiae Fructus from its processes products and study the changes of raw and processed products before and after processing, we evaluated four auxiliary material processing methods including vinegar, Zingiberis Rhizoma, Coptidis Rhizoma, and Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizoma. The raw Euodiae Fructus and four processed Euodiae Fructus samples were analyzed and compared based on the high‐performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) fingerprints combined with chemometrics, including principal component analysis (PCA), partial least squares‐discriminant analysis (PLS‐DA), and principal component analysis‐class (PCA‐Class). A total of 27 common peaks were obtained by fingerprint analysis. The fingerprint similarity of raw and processed samples was between 0.86–0.999. We also determined the contents of the main active ingredients ‐ Evodiamine and Rutaecarpine. PCA and PLS‐DA analyses were used to distinguish between the raw and processed samples of Euodiae Fructus, and 14 chemical markers were screened out. Four kinds of processed products were further analyzed and the results showed that they could be successfully distinguished under the established models, and 12 chemical markers were labeled. PCA‐Class results revealed that the classification models constructed in this study had adequate discrimination ability. The method combined with HPLC fingerprinting and multi‐component chemical pattern recognition technology could be used to differentiate raw and processed Euodiae Fructus with adequate predictive power. Our findings confirmed the rationality of the pharmacopoeial method and provided a reference for the quality control of the Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizoma processed Euodiae Fructus.