Background: To promote herbal medicine depends largely on its quality. Chromatographic fingerprint is a frequent approach for quality assessment of herbs however with challenges on robust and reproducibility. To develop rapid, cheap and comprehensive measurements as complementary tools for herbal quality control are still urgently needed. Moreover, biological activities are essential for herbal quality, and should be taken into consideration with emphasized in quality control. Methods: In this research, HPLC fingerprint and delayed luminescence (DL, a rapid and systematic tool) were used to measure the rhubarb samples of multiple species. Statistics were explored to classify these rhubarb samples using data obtained from two analytic methods. In addition, DL properties were linked to specific chemical components which may reflect bioactivities of rhubarb using Spearman's rank correlation. Moreover, mice model was used to evaluate the cathartic effect between rhubarb samples stratifying by two analytic methods. Results: We found that there was no significant difference of chemical fingerprints and DL signals among the different species of medicinal rhubarb. However, our results show a high similarity between HPLC fingerprint analysis and DL measurements in classification of these rhubarb samples into two subgroups. In addition, the two subgroups of rhubarb samples that may have different cathartic activities. Conclusion: This approach provides new leads for development of herbal quality assessment based on bioactivity. In conclusion, integrated assessment by measuring HPLC fingerprint and DL with emphasized on bioactivity may provide novel strategy for herbal quality control.
BackgroundHerbal materials are widely used as medicinal products, dietary supplements, food, and spices. With increased consumption, the safety, quality, and efficacy of herbal materials are becoming more relevant. The authenticity of herbal materials plays an important role in herbal quality control, and there is an urgent need to develop a simple, direct, objective, rapid, and inexpensive measurement tool for the identification of herbal materials for the purpose of quality control.MethodsDelayed luminescence (DL) was used to measure authentic and counterfeit herbal materials. A hyperbolic function was used to extract four properties from the DL curves of the herbal materials. Statistical tools, including Student’s t test and Principal Component Analysis, were used to differentiate authentic and counterfeit herbal materials based on the DL properties.ResultsOur results showed that authentic and counterfeit herbal materials could be identified based on the DL properties as follows: (a) authentic versus counterfeit materials; (b) authentic versus adulterated materials; (c) authentic versus sulfur-fumigated materials; as well as (d) authentic versus dyed materials.ConclusionThe simple, direct, rapid, and inexpensive measurements offered by DL potentially offer a novel technique for the identification of Chinese herbal materials. However, the establishment of a valid database will be the next step toward the possible application of this technique, which would contribute significantly to the development of a novel digital tool for the quality control of herbal materials.
Background: Investigation of aged Chinese herbal materials will help us to understand their use and sources in ancient time and broaden the historical perspective of Chinese material medica. To reach this aim, the basic understanding of aged herbal materials, including physical and chemical characters, is of great importance. Delayed luminescence (DL) technique was developed as a rapid, direct, systemic, objective and sample loss-free tool to characterize the properties of Chinese herbal materials. In this study, we measured DL values in aged Chinese herbal materials that were transported from Asia to Europe during the 20th century and stored in Naturalis Biodiversity Center and the Utrecht University museum, and compared these with modern material of the same species. Methods: A hyperbolic function was used to extract four properties from the DL curves of Chinese herbal material from 1900, the 1950s and recently harvested products. Statistical tools, including the Student's t test, One-way analysis of variance and Principal Component Analysis, were used to differentiate the DL properties of aged and contemporary collections of Glycyrrhiza spp. Curcuma aromatica Salisb., Zingiber officinale Roscoe, Alpinia officinarum Hance and Acorus calamus L. Results: Our results showed that DL properties were significantly different between historical and contemporary Chinese herbal materials. Changes in DL values were species-dependent: the effects of storage time of DL properties were specific for each species. These outcomes help us not only in the identification of historical Chinese medicine products but also provides valuable data of the effect of storage time on herbal materials. Conclusion: The simple, direct, rapid, and inexpensive measurements offered by DL provide a novel tool to assess the taxonomic identity of Chinese and other herbal materials and assess the differences in chemical properties with increasing storage time. Our results contribute to the further development of novel digital tools for the quality control of herbal materials.
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