A comparative study of aged and contemporary Chinese herbal materials by using delayed luminescence technique

Abstract

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.

Integrated assessment of medicinal rhubarb by combination of delayed luminescence and HPLC fingerprint with emphasized on bioactivities based quality control

“…Moreover, additional research should emphasize bioactivity based quality assessments for herbs in order to promote the shift from evaluating chemical pattern to evaluating activities corresponding to the chemical constituents. In conclusion, DL provides a technique for studying the overall property of herbal materials [43], and the integrated assessment by measuring chromatographic fingerprint and DL based on bioactivity may provide a novel means to measure herbal quality control.…”

Ultra-weak photon emission: a nondestructive detection tool for food quality and safety assessment

“…For this purpose, four category tests were selected UPE can be utilized as a fast, simple, and inexpensive method, rather than conventional techniques to identify herbal materials Gała˛zka-Czarnecka et al, 2019 Eggs Assessing the quality of eggs Two different hens, including the caged and free-range, were selected to determine their freshness and quality It was observed that UPE from free-range eggs had eight times higher intensity than eggs from caged hens. They also found that the eggs from free-range hens had more than three times higher carotenoid than eggs from caged hens Jia et al 2020 Herbal materials…”

“…They stated that further research is needed for using the UPE method as a food quality assessment tool. Jia et al (2020) studied the aged and contemporary properties of some Chinese herbal materials, including Glycyrrhiza glabra L., Glycyrrhiza inflata Batalin, Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch., Curcuma aromatica Salisb., Zingiber officinale Roscoe, Acorus calamus L., and Alpinia officinarum Hance. They implemented the UPE technique by PMT devices to differentiate the aged and contemporary samples.…”

“…The emission of light by various living organisms was demonstrated by several previous investigations (Burgos et al, 2017;Cifra and Pospíšil, 2014;de Mello Gallep and Robert 2020;Esmaeilpour et al, 2020;Jia et al, 2020; Ultra-weak photon emission for food quality and safety assessment structure and quality. Therefore, the use of nondestructive methods has attracted many researchers (El-Mesery et al, 2019;Magwaza et al, 2013).…”

Investigation of Quality Assessment for Different Grades of Velvet Antler: a Strategy Combined Microscopic Observation, Delayed Luminescence and Chemical Analysis

“…Recently, DL has been used to assess the quality features of dry powders prepared from plant-derived Chinese herbal materials [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. DL provides a new method for measuring plant-derived herbal materials which can be recognized as a rapid, direct and sensitive indicator of a wide range of herbs prepared in different grown environments, different age, different processing statues, as well as different therapeutic properties [11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Thus, DL becomes a promising technique for herbal quality control, and it may become a novel tool to combine with other analytic technological platform such as high performance liquid chromatography ngerprint platform [17].…”