Twenty-six batches of Gardeniae Fructus from different producing area were collected for the development of the fingerprint, and the main components of Gardeniae Fructus were identified by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. The producing areas of Gardeniae Fructus were distinguished by chemical pattern recognition technology, and the index components of Gardeniae Fructus were quantitated. An UPLC wavelength switching method was adopted, and the separation was carried out on a Waters Acquity UPLC HASS C_(18)(2.1 mm×100 mm, 1.7 μm) column using the mobile phase of acetonitrile-0.5% formic acid water for gradient elution. Principal component analysis(PCA) and orthogonal partial least square discriminant analysis(OPLS-DA) were used for the data ana-lysis. The results showed that the similarity of 26 batches of Gardeniae Fructus was more than 0.89, and ten common peaks were defined. Sixteen compounds including monoterpenes, iridoids and diterpenoids were identified by reference identification, literature comparison and high-resolution mass spectrometry data analysis. The distinguishment of origin of Gardeniae Fructus was realized by PCA and OPLS-DA analysis, and two quality differential markers were screened as geniposide and crocin Ⅰ. The contents of crocin Ⅰ, crocin Ⅱ and geniposide in Gardeniae Fructus from different places were different. These results will provide reference for the geographical origin traceability of Gardeniae Fructus.
Keywords: Gardeniae Fructus; OPLS-DA; PCA; mass spectrometry; qualitative analysis; quantitative fingerprint.