Simultaneous qualitative characterization of four herbs in Weikangling capsules by a validated high-performance thin-layer chromatography method

The rapid and handy high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) method has been widely adopted to qualitatively identify herbs or medicinal materials from Chinese patent medicine. Weikangling capsules, as one of the traditional Chinese patent medicines for treating chronic gastritis, consist of Paeoniae Radix Alba, Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizoma, Bletillae Rhizoma, Notoginseng Radix et Rhizoma, Poria, Corydalis Rhizoma, Sepiae Endoconcha, and Belladonnae Extractum. However, there has been no effective method to identify both monarch and minister drugs in the prescription simultaneously so far. We report in this paper a new HPTLC method for the simultaneous qualitative identification of four herbs in Weikangling capsules using the lower layer of the chloroform-methanol-water (14:5:1, V/V) mixture as the mobile phase. Importantly, the method achieved "one-plate multi-drug" and could identify the monarch drugs (Paeoniae Radix Alba and Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizoma) and the minister drugs (Bletillae Rhizoma and Notoginseng Radix et Rhizoma) at the same time, which could better reflect the effect of emolliating the liver and harmonizing the stomach, dissipating stasis, and stopping bleeding.