An approach was proposed to develop enhanced fingerprint by means of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with photodiode array detection. The approach was applied to establish enhanced chromatographic fingerprints of various Artemisia selengensis Turcz which is a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). In comparison with common fingerprint at a fixed wavelength, enhanced fingerprint compiled additional spectral data and was more informative. So it could be used to conduct the quality control of this TCM comprehensively. Thereafter, the chromatographic fingerprint data set was submitted for classification to a suite of chemometrics methods viz. similarity analysis (SA), hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) and principal component analysis (PCA). Each method highly lighted different properties of the data matrix according to the fingerprints from different types of A. selengensis Turcz. It provided comprehensive information for matching and discrimination of the fingerprints, and appeared to be suited for quality assurance purposes for these similar types of sample.
