Quality Assessment of Crude and Vinegar-Processed Bupleuri Radix Using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Fingerprint and Chemometric Analysis.

Bupleuri Radix (BR), a principal botanical drug in traditional Chinese medicine, is valued for its multifaceted pharmacological activities, including anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and hepatoprotective properties. Nevertheless, critical challenges persist concerning the ambiguous botanical authentication of crude origins and inconsistent quality control in processed BR materials. In this study, high-performance liquid chromatography fingerprints were successfully established, and the similarity was 0.814-0.923. Subsequently, through hierarchical cluster analysis and principal component analysis, the samples were initially classified into two origins: Bupleurum chinense DC. and Bupleurum scorzonerifolium Willd. Within each origin group, the specimens were further stratified into two subgroups: crude and vinegar-processed BR. Orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis was applied to confirm classification results and obtain the chemical markers. The content determination results showed that Saikosaponin a (SSa) and Saikosaponin d (SSd) in both origins exhibited notable reductions following the vinegar-processing procedure, while Saikosaponin b1 (SSb1) and Saikosaponin b2 (SSb2) demonstrated marked increases. Network pharmacology and molecular docking techniques demonstrated that active molecules have a higher affinity for ALB and CASP3. The methods and results of this study provide a reliable basis for the identification and rational utilization of BR.