Rapid Characterization of Male and Female Taxus chinensis by Near-Infrared (NIR) Spectroscopy and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) with Orthogonal Partial Least Squares-Discriminant Analysis (OPLS-DA)

Taxus chinensis var. mairei (T. chinensis) is a dioecious plant that is important in traditional Chinese medicine. However, information about male and female T. chinensis is absent. To establish a simple, rapid, and reliable method for the qualitative identification of male and female T. chinensis, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with the orthogonal partial least-squares discriminate analysis (OPLS-DA) mode was performed. NIR and discriminant analysis (DA) were employed for the first time to distinguish male and female T. chinensis. Meanwhile, HPLC also was optimized to determine the contents of the bioactive ingredients 10-deacetyltaxol (10-DAT) and paclitaxel of T. chinensis. Herein, the results of the validation showed that the DA model using NIR had a correct differentiation of nearly 100% for male and female T. chinensis. Moreover, the HPLC results indicated that the content of paclitaxel and 10-DAT was higher in female plants than in males. Additionally, based on the HPLC content results of male and female T. chinensis, the OPLS-DA successfully distinguished male and female T. chinensis. Thus, combining HPLC and OPLS-DA to initially differentiate between males and females allowed further quantitative and qualitative analysis of male and female T. chinensis. This method provides an approach to the identification and quality control of traditional Chinese medicine.