Pitfalls of the Selection of Chemical Markers for the Quality Control of Medicinal Herbs
Sunny Sun-Kin Chan1,2, Song-Lin Li1 and Ge Lin1*
1. Department of Pharmacology, 2. School of Chinese Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR
Abstract
Selection of chemical marker is critical to the quality control and standardization of medicinal herbs. The ideal chemical marker is the active principle with demonstrated clinical efficacy contributing to the therapeutic effect of the herb, while the worst ones are the analytical marker and “phantom” marker whose pharmacological actions are unknown, uncontrollable or unpredictable. In this article, we explore the seven categories of chemical markers, discuss the pitfalls of choosing them, and illustrate the problems using a traditional Chinese medicinal herb
Ligusticum chuanxiong as an example.
Key words: medicinal herb, quality control, chemical marker, Ligusticum chuanxiong