Quality Evaluation of Wild and Cultivated Schisandrae Chinensis Fructus Based on Simultaneous Determination of Multiple Bioactive Constituents Combined with Multivariate Statistical Analysis

Schisandrae Chinensis Fructus, also called wuweizi in China, was a widely used folk medicine in China, Korea, and Russia. Due to the limited natural resources and huge demand of wuweizi, people tend to cultivate wuweizi to protect this species. However, the quality of wild and cultivated herbs of the same species may change. Little attention has been paid to comparing wild and cultivated wuweizi based on simultaneous determination of its active components, such as lignans and organic acids. An analytical method based on UFLC-QTRAP-MS/MS was used for the simultaneous determination of 15 components, including 11 lignans (schisandrin, gomisin D, gomisin J, schisandrol B, angeloylgomisin H, schizantherin B, schisanhenol, deoxyschizandrin, gamma-schisandrin, schizandrin C, and schisantherin) and 4 organic acids (quinic acid, d(-)-tartaric acid, l-(-)-malic acid, and protocatechuic acid) in wuweizi under different ecological environments. Principal components analysis (PCA), partial least squares discrimination analysis (PLS-DA), independent sample t-test, and gray relational analysis (GRA) have been applied to classify and evaluate samples from different ecological environments according to the content of 15 components. The results showed that the differential compounds (i.e., quinic acid, l-(-)-malic acid, protocatechuic acid, schisandrol B) were significantly related to the classification of wild and cultivated wuweizi. GRA results demonstrated that the quality of cultivated wuweizi was not as good as wild wuweizi. The protocol not just provided a new method for the comprehensive evaluation and quality control of wild and cultivated wuweizi, but paved the way to differentiate them at the chemistry level.