Objective: To determine the contents of alcohol-soluble extractive

total saponins and total polysaccharides in different grades of Asparagi Radix

and to explore the correlation between the effective components and their grades for investigating the rationality of grading method of Asparagi Radix. Method: The content of alcohol-soluble extraction of Asparagi Radix with different grade was determined according to the 2015 edition of Chinese Pharmaeopoeia.Ultraviolet visible spectrophotometry was used to determine the content of total saponins in Asparagi Radix samples with detection wavelength at 408 nm.The content of total polysaccharides was quantified by phenol-sulfuric acid method.The correlation analysis and linear regression analysis were used to analyze the correlation between the grades and quantitative indexes. Result: The contents of alcohol-soluble extractive and total saponins existed significant difference (P<0.05) in different grades of Asparagi Radix. The content of total polysaccharides was significantly different (P<0.05) between the first and the third grade

but the difference was not significant between other grades.The correlation analysis indicated that the grades showed extremely significant positive correlation with alcohol-soluble extractive content and total saponins content(P<0.01)

and showed significant positive correlation with total polysaccharides content(P<0.05). Conclusion: The contents of total saponins and alcohol-soluble extractive in Asparagi Radix are consistent with the classification method by taking diameter of the middle part of medicine as the main standard

which indicates that the grading method of Asparagi Radix is still reasonable.Quality evaluation of Asparagi Radix is recommended to determine the content of total saponins by taking contents of alcohol-soluble extractive and total polysaccharides as the secondary indicators.