LC/MS fingerprint and simultaneous quantification of main bioactive compounds in Polyporus umbellatus (Pers.) Fr. from different regions and developmental stages

Polyporus umbellatus (Pers.) Fr. is a kind of pharmaceutical fungus collected in Chinese Pharmacopoeia since it is effective in treating edema, drench turbidity, diarrhea, morbid leucorrhea and urination. In this research, detection of alcohol soluble ingredient was accomplished successfully using LC/MS combined Similarity Evaluation System (SES), Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and two main active compounds (ergosterol, polysaccharide) were determined and analyzed. The similarity between the fingerprints of the 33 samples from different regions was 0.486-0.972 and a total of 19 common peaks were found and identified. The similarity between fingerprints of 17 samples of different developmental stages was 0.201-0.922, and a total of 13 common peaks could be found and identified. HCA could get rid of sample of cultured indoor and stages of T2, T3, T4 were clustered together. PCA provided an effective way to identify samples of cultured indoor and different developmental stages rapidly and nondestructively. For samples collected from different regions, the highest levels of average ergosterol and polysaccharide content were samples from Qinling Mountains and Yanshan Mountains, being 0.160% and 0.425%, respectively. For ergosterol content of samples of different developmental stages, it is on the up trend from stages T1 to T5; for polysaccharide content, stages T1 and T5 were higher than T2, T3, T4, and the difference was significant (p < 0.05). This method, using LC/MS fingerprint chromatograms together with UV spectrophotometry for the evaluation of P. umbellatus, could be used for both qualitative and quantitative analysis, as well as a prediction for quality control and standardization of its metabolites.