A comprehensive strategy combined chemical spectrum with anti-inflammatory activity for screening combinatorial quality markers of Valeriana jatamansi Jones

Valeriana jatamansi Jones (V. jatamansi) is an ethnomedicinal herb widely used worldwide for its excellent anti-inflammatory activity. However, the quality control markers that were correlated with the anti-inflammatory activity in V. jatamansi remained unclear. This study aimed to identify combinatorial quality markers based on the anti-inflammatory effects of V. jatamansi for enhancing its quality control. The chemical constituents of V. jatamansi were identify by UPLC-Q-TOF-MS, and 36 compounds were identified. The anti-inflammatory mechanism was predicted by network pharmacology, STAT3 and JAK1 were selected as key targets. The anti-inflammatory activity and predicted targets were validated by using lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW264.7 cells in vitro. A combination of bivariate correlation analysis (BCA) and grey correlation analysis (GCA) was applied to evaluate the correlation between the chemical spectrum and the anti-inflammatory activities. Hesperidin, acevaltrate and valtrate were screened as potential quality markers. These three compounds exhibited anti-inflammatory effects by inhibiting the production of inflammatory mediators (NO, IL-6, IL-1β and TNF-α) and suppressing the expression of the two key targets (JAK1 and STAT3). The quantitative analysis results showed that the contents of the combinatorial quality markers were positively correlated with the anti-inflammatory activity of V. jatamansi. The contribution rate of the combinatorial quality markers reached 45.0 %. This study provides a comprehensive strategy for the quality control of V. jatamansi based on combinatorial quality markers.