Objective: To investigate the relationship between HPLC fingerprints and hepatoprotective activity of ethyl acetate extract from Herpetospermum caudigerum. Method: Fingerprints of different combination of ethyl acetate extract from H. caudigerum were established by HPLC and were evaluated by hierarchical clustering analysis. In addition

nine samples of ethyl acetate fraction from H. caudigerum with different chemical composition were acquired by uniform design and silica gel column chromatography.The hepatoprotective activity of H. caudigerum were evaluated with models of immunologic liver injury in mice

and the models were induced by injecting bacille calmette-guerin (BCG) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) through the tail vein.The spectrum-effect relationship between HPLC fingerprints and hepatoprotective activity was investigated by grey relational analysis and partial least squares regression analysis (PLSR). Result: There were significantly differences in HPLC fingerprints of 9 samples

and 16 common characteristic peaks were detected in HPLC chromatography.Compared with the model group

the treatment with 9 samples restored the serum levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT)

aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and decreased the content of malonaldehyde (MDA) in BCG/LPS-induced immunological liver injury mice.The spectrum-efficacy relationship found that the main anti-immunological liver injury effect was mostly due to herpetin

herpetotriol

herpetrione

herpetone and herpetal. Conclusion: Each sample exhibits good activity on anti-liver injury

and that some lignan constituents

such as herpetin

herpetrione

herpetotriol

herpetone and herpetal

might be the main contributive components in H. caudigerum to hepatoprotective activity.