Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry combined Fisher statistics for the determination of Cold-Heat nature of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Very little is known about analysis of distinguishing the Cold-Heat nature of Chinese herbs by multivariable statistics. We found a way of differentiating the Cold-Heat nature and discuss the relationship between polysaccharides and four nature of 20 Chinese herbs in order to identify the material basis of nature of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The polysaccharides from 20 herbs were extracted, hydrolyzed by trifluoroacetic acid, and derivatized by acetylization method. After that, determined the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry of monosaccharide composition of polysaccharides and analyzed the results in Fisher method. The monosaccharide were separated well by gas chromatography-mass method. Both of the numbers of the peaks and the peak areas about the heat herbs were more than the cold. A discriminant function had established by Fisher method. In this study, significant differences were present between the cold and the heat Chinese herbs in the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The Fisher can distinguish the Cold-Heat nature of 20 Chinese herbs, and the polysaccharide is one of the material basis of the Cold-Heat nature.