Botanical ingredient identification and quality assessment: strengths and limitations of analytical techniques

Abstract

Interest in botanical medicines is increasing worldwide with current global market values estimated to be greater than US $72 billion. To ensure ingredients used in botanical preparations are appropriately identified and will deliver the intended benefit while minimizing potential for risk, good manufacturing practices (GMPs) are required. GMPs require that scientifically valid analytical techniques be used. This review discusses a variety of techniques of quality assessment taking into account the different challenges between academicians and manufacturers with the basic premise that all techniques are scientifically valid if used appropriately, and conversely, are limited if not used in a scientifically valid manner. The strengths and limitations, applications and inapplicability, of some of these techniques will be discussed, as will differences between traditional and more modern analytical techniques. A strong emphasis is placed on classical botanical and traditional macromorphological assessment techniques that represent the basis of identification and quality assessment upstream of other techniques such as analytical chemistry and genetics. It will be shown that it is the suite of botanical and chemical techniques that provides the greatest confidence for ensuring the identity and quality of botanical medicines.

1H nuclear magnetic resonance-based metabolite profiling of guava leaf extract: an attempt to develop a prototype for standardization of plant extracts

“…Fingerprinting is considered distinctive and forms a benchmark for a particular extract especially when the identity of the active principle(s) is unknown [ 38 ]. Hence it is in tune with the concept that the entire plant could represent a drug itself and not just a single compound [ 39 ]. In high resolution spectra such as 1 H NMR used in the present study, fingerprinting ignores the assignment problem arising due to the multitude of signals and on the contrary, through multivariate analysis compares set of spectra and thus the samples from which the spectra were obtained [ 40 ].…”

DNA-Based Authentication and Metabolomics Analysis of Medicinal Plants Samples by DNA Barcoding and Ultra-High-Performance Liquid Chromatography/Triple Quadrupole Mass Spectrometry (UHPLC-MS)

“…Herbal products are sold as ground or powdered form of a raw herb, which makes correct botanical identification difficult [ 22 ]. DNA barcoding constitutes a very useful tool for quality control and, consequently, for clinical safety [ 23 , 24 ]. Molecular analyses is crucial for accurate and fast identification of medicinal plants, since the plant fragments sold in the market is difficult to identify using traditional methods especially due to lack of morphological features.…”

Antioxidant and Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Genus Gynura: A Systematic Review

“…Chromatographic methods such as thin-layer chromatography/high-performance TLC (TLC/HP-TLC) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), which are the most commonly used chemical techniques in the identification and quality assessment of medicinal plant ingredients, have provided characteristic qualitative and quantitative patterns of the constituents. Spectroscopic techniques, including UV, IR, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), allow the quantitation of single or multiple compounds that share similarities in their UV absorbance, thus providing a more holistic view of herbal medicines in contrast to the quantitation of a single compound ( Upton et al, 2019 ). Chemical analysis of Gynura species were reported in studies conducted by Kim et al (2011) , Siriwatanametanon and Heinrich (2011) , Wu et al (2013) , Yu et al (2016) , Yuandani et al (2017) , Rahman et al (2018) , Sukadeetad et al (2018) , Dong et al (2019) , Huang et al (2019) , Liu M. et al (2019) , Liu Y. et al (2019) , Nazri et al (2019) , and Chandradevan et al (2020) using methods such as HP-TLC, HPLC, gas chromatography-mass spectrometer, electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry, electrospray ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry, ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry, 1 H N 13 C NMR, and 2D-NMR.…”