Objective To evaluate the quality of Lycium barbarum leaves from various production areas in Ningxia, an HPLC fingerprinting technique combined with chemometrics and quantitative determination of multiple alkaloids constituents with LC-MS/MS was used to construct the alkaloidal fingerprints of L. barbarum leaves (S1—S50) from five bases in three production areas in Ningxia. Methods The HPLC method and Similarity Evaluation System for Chromatographic Fingerprinting in Chinese Medicine (version 2012) were used to generate fingerprints, and similarity evaluation and common peak confirmation were carried out. Meanwhile, LC-MS/MS was used to establish a method for the determination of the contents of seven alkaloids constituents (choline, betaine, trigonelline, lyciumin A, lyciumin B, N-trans-feruloyltyramine, N-feruloyl-3-methoxytyramine) to evaluate the leaves of L. barbarum from different origins in Ningxia. Results The obtained fingerprints had a total of 18 common peaks. The similarity between the alkaloid fingerprints of 50 batches of L. barbarum leaves. The control fingerprints ranged from 0.692 to 0.981. Zhongning and Guyuan origin L. barbarum leaves fingerprints have higher similarity to the control fingerprints, while Yinchuan origin L. barbarum leaves fingerprints have lower similarity to the control fingerprints. Hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) clustered the 50 batches of samples into four categories; principal component analysis (PCA) screened out four principal components, with a cumulative variance of 89.014%; orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) screened out the components with larger contributions to inter-group variance, which were, in the order of the size of the VIP, peak 5 > peak 3 > peak 10 > peak 11 > peak 13 > peak 2 > peak 4 > peak 9; content determination showed that seven alkaloids from Guyuan origin had the highest content. The results of content determination showed that the seven alkaloids of Guyuan origin had the highest content. Conclusion A stable HPLC fingerprint of L. barbarum leaves of different origins and a quantitative LC-MS/MS method for the determination of seven alkaloids were constructed, which can be used for the analysis of the difference in the origins of L. barbarum leaves and quality evaluation by combining with chemometrics.

Lycium barbarum L.  /  Ningqicai No. 1  /  choline  /  betaine  /  trigonelline  /  lyciumin A  /  lyciumin B  /  N-trans-feruloyltyramine  /  N-feruloyl-3-methoxytyramine  /  fingerprint  /  HPLC