Chemical profiling for quality monitoring and evaluation of medicinal plants is gaining attention. This study aims to develop an HPLC method followed by multivariate analysis to obtain HPLC profiles of five specific flavonoids, including rutin (1), hyperin (2), isoquercitrin (3), quercitrin (4), and quercetin (5) from Houttuynia cordata leaves and powder products and assess the quality of H. cordata samples. Eventually, we successfully established HPLC-based flavonoid profiles and quantified the contents of 32 H. cordata fresh leave samples and four powder products. The study also quantified the contents of those five essential flavonoids using an optimized RP-HPLC method. Peak areas of samples were then investigated with principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) to evaluate the similarity and variance. Principal components in PCA strongly influenced by hyperin and quercetin showed that the samples were clustered into subgroups, demonstrating H. cordata samples’ quality. The results of HCA showed the similarity and divided the samples into seven subgroups. In conclusion, we have successfully developed a practical methodology that combined the HPLC-based flavonoid profiling and multivariate analysis for the quantification and quality control of H. cordata samples from fresh leaves and powder products. For further studies, we will consider various environmental factors, including climate and soil factors, to investigate their effects on the flavonoid contents of H. cordata.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most frequent type of primary liver cancer and is the leading cause of cancer mortality in Vietnam. Our study aims to discover the partial extracts with the potential cytotoxic effects on HCC cells from the different parts of 24 Vietnamese medicinal plants traditionally used in liver cancer treatment. Out of 52 crude methanol extracts, we found that Luvunga scandens leaves, Hyptis suaveolens roots, and Solanum torvum leaves showed the notable cytotoxic effects against HCC cells. After that, we carried out partial extract of the three methanol extracts with ethyl acetate, water, n-hexane, and 90% methanol. The cytotoxic activity on Huh-7 HCC cells, antioxidant capacity, and total flavonoids content (TFC) of each partial extraction were determined. Methanol, ethyl acetate, and 90% methanol extracts showed moderate to strong cytotoxicity activity against Huh-7 HCC cells. Notably, the ethyl acetate and 90% methanol extract from H. suaveolens roots with high TFC values and strong antioxidant capacity could be promising sources of novel therapeutic modalities for HCC treatment. For the leaves of L. scandens and S. torvum, the ethyl acetate extract showed high TFC value and promising anti-HCC activity, therefore recommended further studies.