Development of a comprehensive quality control method for the quantitative analysis of volatiles and lignans in Magnolia biondii Pamp. by near infrared spectroscopy

The quality of drug is vital to its curative effect, thus it is important to develop a comprehensive quality control method for commonly used drugs. In this study, we developed a Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry separation method for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of volatiles, together with a High-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry separation method for lignans in Magnolia biondii Pamp.. 79 volatiles and 11 lignans were identified via comparing their chromatographic behavior and mass spectra data with those in the literature. The methods were then used to determine the contents of volatiles (1, 8-cineole, d-Limonene, α-terpineol, linalool, L-camphor brain and bornyl acetate) and lignans (epieudesmin, magnolin, epi-magnolin A and fargesin) in Magnolia biondii Pamp.. Subsequently, 13 qualitative models including volatiles (1, 8-cineole, d-Limonene, α-terpineol, linalool, L-camphor brain and bornyl acetate), water-soluble extractive, lignans (pinoresinol dimethyl ether, magnolin, epi-magnolin A and fargesin) and moisture were developed by Near-Infrared Spectroscopy based on partial least square regression herein. The reference values were obtained by High-performance liquid chromatography, Gas chromatography and etc., while the predicted values were attained from the NIR spectrum. Compared with the traditional detection methods, NIR technique methodology significantly improved the ability to evaluate the quality of Magnolia biondii Pamp., which had the advantages of convenience, celerity, highly efficiency, low cost, no harm to samples, no reagent consumption, and no pollution to the environment. Moreover, the systematic analysis method combined pharmaceutical analysis with pharmacochemistry was proposed to prepare volatiles, water-soluble extractive and lignans parts from the same sample. This way could extract more index components to be beneficial in the quality control of Magnolia biondii Pamp. roundly.