Abstract: ［Abstract］〓Objective〖HTSS〗〓To establish the high performance liquid chromatography(HPLC) fingerprint of Cortex Fraxini and its confusable species and to provide a new basis for quality control of Cortex Fraxini.
〖HTH〗〖WTHZ〗Methods〖HTSS〗〓The chromatographic separation was carried out on an Agilent Zorbax SBC18 column(250 mm×4.6 mm, 5 μm) with solvent A (methanol) and solvent B(water containing 0.5‰ acetic acid) as the mobile phases in gradient elution. The detection wave length was 230 nm. Using the similarity evaluation system of chromatographic fingerprints of traditional Chinese medicine, taking aesculin as reference peak, the fingerprints of 52 batches, 4 cultivars of Cortex Fraxini samples and 3 batches of confusable species were established respectively.
〖HTH〗〖WTHZ〗Results〖HTSS〗〓Ten common peaks were found in 52 batches of Cortex Fraxini, and the 52 batches of samples could be divided into 3 categories, with similarities ranging from 0.8 to 1.0, 0.6 to 0.8 and 0.4 to 0.6, respectively. The similarity within 4 cultivars of Cortex Fraxini was higher, but there were differences among cultivars. The similarity of the 3 batches of confusion species was less than 0.47, and there were only two peaks, which showed great difference compared with the genuine products.
〖HTH〗〖WTHZ〗Conclusion〖HTSS〗〓The established HPLC fingerprint method of Cortex Fraxini could distinguish Cortex Fraxini with confusable species, which could be used for the quality control of Cortex Fraxini.

Key words: Cortex Fraxini, fingerprint, chromatography, high pressure liquid, quality control