Aim: To develop the chemical characteristics of Panax notoginseng in order to control its quality.
Methods: The samples was extracted using pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) and analyzed by HPLC-DAD. The data were evaluated using the "similarity evaluation system for chromatographic fingerprint of TCM" software (version 2004A).
Results: The chromatographic characteristics of 28 Panax notoginseng from different places were established using HPLC-DAD, and 8 peaks among 13 typical ones in the chromatograms were identified by comparing with their reference compounds. The similarity of different samples was high (0.982 +/- 0.008, RSD = 0.78%).
Conclusion: The chromatographic characteristics are useful to control the quality of Panax notoginseng.