Abstract: To explore the effects of different drying methods on multiple bioactive constituents in Ophiopogonis Radix.A comprehensive analytical method employed with ultra-fast liquid chromatography tandem triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UFLC-QTRAP-MS/MS) was used for the simultaneous determination of twenty-nine components including steroidal saponins,homoisoflavonoids,amino acids and nucleosides in Ophiopogonis Radix.Hierarchical clustering analysis(HCA) and principal component analysis(PCA) have been applied to comprehensively analyze and evaluate the results of multiple active constituents.The results showed that twenty-nine components had good linearity,and correlation coefficients were more than 0.999 0.The method exhibited good precision,repeatability and stability with the relative standard deviation (RSD) less than 5%,the average recoveries were between 97.02% and 102.78%,and all RSD were less than 5%.In addition,the results of PCA showed that sun drying and non-sulfurized oven drying samples have better quality.The established method was accurate and reliable,which could be used to appraise the quality of Ophiopogonis Radix.Our study can provide basis for revealing the scientific connotation of traditional drying method of Ophiopogonis Radix,and may lay the way for optimization of drying method during the processing of Ophiopogonis Radix.

Key words: Ophiopogonis Radix, drying method, UFLC-QTRAP-MS/MS, multiple bioactive constituents, hierarchical clustering analysis, principal component analysis