Metabolic fingerprinting investigation of Tussilago farfara L. by GC-MS and multivariate data analysis

Tussilago farjara L. is a common herbal medicine which has been widely used to relieve cough and resolve phlegm. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the flower buds are used, while, in Europe, the leaves are preferred. In this study, the chemical profiles of its leaves and flowers were systematically characterized using gas chromatographic mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and multivariate analysis. Principle component analysis (PCA) and orthogonal projection to latent structures discriminate analysis (OPLS-DA) of GC-MS data provided a clear separation between those samples. The results obviously showed that the metabolome of leaves, flower buds, and fully open flowers are different, and the corresponding loading S-plots revealed that the differential metabolites between the leaves and flowers, and between the fully open flowers and flower buds, were picked out and identified. In conclusion, GC-MS spectroscopy in combination with multivariate analysis has a great potential for chemical comparison study of the metabolome of herbal drugs. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.