Natural products generally contain complex and multiple bioactive compounds that are responsible for the effects on health through complicated synergistic and/or suppressive actions. As an important raw material of local ethnic minority tea, ethnomedicines and food supplements in southwestern areas of China, Docynia indica (Wall.) Decne (DID) mainly consists of phlorizin (PHZ), which is the main active component. In this study, the holistic activities and the interactions of components of PHZ, non-phlorizin (NP) in the DID extract (DIDE) were evaluated. A rapid and effective high-speed counter-current chromatography (HSCCC) was performed to knock out PHZ from DIDE and the purity of PHZ was 96.01% determined by HPLC, with a recovery rate of 96.76%. After 13 weeks of treatment course in a high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obese mice model, the results revealed that the DIDE and PHZ significantly decreased weight gain, blood lipid levels, hyperplasia of adipocytes and alleviated inflammation (p < 0.05). Both DIDE and PHZ improves insulin resistance (p < 0.001). Meanwhile, the intestinal barrier function was improved compared to HFD group, through the determination of serum lipopolysaccharides (LPS), glucagon-likepeptide-2 (GLP-2) and hematoxylin-eosin staining of jejunum. Interestingly, after NP treatment, the metabolic syndrome of the HFD-induced obesity appeared to have a similar improvement. All the experiments showed that there is a synergistic weakening phenomenon when PHZ and NP interact with each other in the mixed state. In conclusion, for the PHZ and NP showing a good effect on anti-obesity, anti-inflammation, and intestinal barrier function, DIDE could be a good source of functional food to prevent obesity.

Docynia dcne leaf from the genus of Docynia Dcne (including three species of Docynia delavayi, Docynia indica and Docynia longiunguis.) is an important raw material of local ethnic minority tea, ethnomedicines and food supplements in southwestern areas of China. However, D. dcne leaves from these three species are usually used confusingly, which could influence the therapeutic effect of it. A rapid and effective method for the chemical fingerprint and quantitative analysis to evaluate the quality of D. dcne leaves was established. The chemometric methods, including similarity analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis and partial least-squares discrimination analysis, were applied to distinguish 30 batches of D. dcne leaf samples from these three species. The above results could validate each other and successfully group these samples into three categories which were closely related to the species of D. dcne leaves. Moreover, isoquercitrin and phlorizin were screened as the chemical markers to evaluate the quality of D. dcne leaves from different species. And the contents of isoquercitrin and phlorizin varied remarkably in these samples, with ranges of 6.41–38.84 and 95.73–217.76 mg/g, respectively. All the results indicated that an integration method of chemical fingerprint couple with chemometrics analysis and quantitative assessment was a powerful and beneficial tool for quality control of D. dcne leaves, and could be applied also for differentiation and quality control of other herbal preparations.