LAUSR

ABSTRACT Gentiana rigescens is a famous herbal medicine in China for treatment of convulsion, rheumatism, and jaundice. Here, the infrared determination of gentiopicroside, swertiamarin, sweroside, and loganic acid in G. rigescens from different areas and varieties was presented for the first time. Reference information for the iridoids were obtained by high-performance liquid chromatography. Partial least squares was used to characterize the relationship between spectra matrix and concentration vector for the determination of the analytes. For determination of gentiopicroside, the appropriate performance of partial least squares model was acquired with coefficient of determination of calibration and coefficient of determination of prediction values of 0.965 and 0.868. The root mean square error of estimation (RMSEE), root mean square error of cross validation (RMSECV), root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP), and residual predictive deviation (RPD) values were 2.612, 5.292, 5.239 mg g−1, and 2.701, respectively, based on the first derivative and multiplicative scatter correction. For determination of the total iridoids, the best results were obtained using the coefficient of determination of calibration and coefficient of determination of prediction of 0.943 and 0.834, RMSEE, RMSECV, RMSEP and RPD of 3.896, 7.536, 6.543 mg g−1 and 2.438, respectively, based on the first derivative. Both models were reliable and robust. The results demonstrated that infrared spectroscopy provided a rapid, low-cost tool to monitor the quality of G. rigescens by the determination of the iridoids.