A comprehensive quality evaluation method of different medicinal parts of Physalis Calyx seu Fructus by fingerprints, chemometrics, antioxidant activity, network pharmacology, and molecular docking

Abstract

Abstract Physalis Calyx seu Fructus (PCF) is one herb with the function of clearing heat and detoxify, benefiting pharynx and reducing phlegm, widely used in health care and tea drinking in China. However, the storage period of fruit and calyx was short and the quality was uneven. It is very important to further develop other parts with long storage period and obvious effect of medicine in PCF. Firstly, the fingerprint of differernt parts of PCF was developed by High-performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). The chemical markers were screened out by a variety of chemometric analyses. It was found that the calyxes of PCF could self-cluster among fruits, roots, stems, and leaves. It was found that the significant active components of PCF were mainly in persistent calyxes, and flavonoids were mainly in persistent calyxes and leaves. Moreover, the extraction of persistent calyxes had the strongest scavenging ability of DPPH and ABTS. Finally, the important chemical markers were verified by network pharmacological analysis and molecular docking. It provides a reference for clinical application of PCF, and the obtained chemical markers also provide a scientific reference for quality evaluation.