Abstract:Objective To establish a pre-column derivation ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) for determining monosaccharide composition in Pseudostellaria heterophylla polysaccharides. Methods The polysaccharides were extracted by hot distilled water, precipitated by alcohol, and hydrolyzed with 2 mol/L sulfuric acid and derived by 1-phenyl-3-methyl-5-pyrazolone (PMP). The analysis of monosaccharide composition of P. heterophylla polysaccharides was carried out by reversed-phase UPLC on a Waters ACQUITY UPLC BEH HILIC C18 column (100.0 mm × 2.1 mm, 1.7 μm) with a mobile phase composed of 0.1 mol/L phosphate (pH 6.8) and Acetonitrile in a gradient elution manner. The detection wavelength was set at 250 nm. Cluster analysis (CA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to evaluate P. heterophylla monosaccharide in different producing areas. Results The P. heterophylla polysaccharides were composed of galactose, D-mannose, rhamnose, arabinose, D-glucose, D-glucuronic acid and D-galacturonic acid. Totally 10 batches of P. heterophylla polysaccharides could be classified into three clusters, and the producing areas were sorted based on the content of monosaccharides. Conclusions The UPLC with pre-column derivation shows that P. heterophylla polysaccharides mainly consist of galacturonic acid, galactose and arabinose. P. heterophylla of Shibing County has higher content of monosaccharides.