Objective： Evaluation of discrimination between two Mylabris Species based on HPLC fingerprinting andspectrum-antitumor effect relationship. Methods： In this study, a simple and efficient high-performance liquidchromatography （HPLC） method integrating with chemometric analysis and spectrum-antitumor effect relationship wasdeveloped for discrimination between two species of Mylabris： Mylabris phalerata Pallas （MP） and Mylabris cichoriiLinnaeus （MC）. Results： In the fingerprint analysis, 14 characteristic peaks were selected to assess the differencesbetween MP and MC using the similarity and pattern recognition analysis using PCA and OPLS-DA. The HPLCchromatograms of samples from 10 regions of China showed differences between MP and MC, and 7 characteristicchemical markers were found. In the spectrum-antitumor effect relationship analysis, 4 activity markers played a vitalrole in decreasing the IC50 and might be the antitumor components of Mylabris by grey relational analysis andmultivariate linear regression analysis. The chemometric analysis in combination with spectrum-effect relationshipresults indicated that peaks 2 （cytosine）, 4 （unknown） and 14 （unknown） were important differential markers fordistinguishing the two species of Mylabris. Conclusion： The method is applicable, credible and more efficient todiscriminate MP and MC, and will offer a new way for facilitating quality control of insect medicines.
Jian-Yong ZhangQi-Hong ChenXian PeiRong YanCan-Can DuanYun LiuXiao-Fei Li
