UHPLC-MS/MS Quantification Combined with Chemometrics for Comparative Analysis of Different Batches of Raw, Wine-Processed, and Salt-Processed Radix Achyranthis Bidentatae

An accurate and reliable method using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography combined with triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC–MS/MS) was established for simultaneous quantification of five major bioactive analytes in raw, wine-processed, and salt-processed Radix Achyranthis bidentatae (RAB). The results showed that this method exhibited desirable sensitivity, precision, stability, and repeatability. The overall intra-day and inter-day variations (RSD) were in the range of 1.57–2.46 and 1.51–3.00%, respectively. The overall recoveries were 98.58–101.48% with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of 0.01–1.86%. In addition, the developed approach was applied to 21 batches of raw, wine-processed, and salt-processed samples of RAB. Hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA), principal component analysis (PCA), heat map, and boxplot analysis were performed to evaluate the quality of raw, wine-processed, and salt-processed RAB collected from different regions. The chemometrics combined with the quantitative analysis based on UHPLC–MS/MS results indicated that the content of five analytes increased significantly in processed RAB compared to raw RAB.