Objective: Research the HPLC fingerprint of the pieces of commercial Glycyrrhizae Radix from the north-west China

and establish the quality standards of commercial Glycyrrhizae Radix to provide a basis for the industry. Method: High performance liquid chromatography was used for the soparation on. Choice ZORBAX Edipse XDB-C18 column (4.60 mm×250 mm

5 μm)

column temperature was maintained at 25 ℃

with acetonitrile-0.05% phosphoric acid was selected as mobile phase by gradient elution

the detection wavelength was set at 237 nm

the gradient elution were adopted. Using the 'chromatographic fingerprint evaluation system 2004A' and SPSS software was used to establish HPLC fingerprint comparison and cluster analysis. Result: Established the HPLC fingerprint of the pieces of commercial Glycyrrhizae Radix from the north-west area China was established

and the results of methodological study met the technical requirements for fingerprinting. Ten common peaks were found in the fingerprint of Sixteen batches of commercial Glycyrrhizae Radix

the similarity was greater than 0.904

and four groups were divided by cluster analysis

together into four groups. Conclusion: This is the first use of HPLC fingerprint to compare different levels of commercial Glycyrrhizae Radix from the north-west China. The HPLC method is stable and reliable to provide a scientific basis of quality inspection and classification for the commercial Glycyrrhizae Radix.