School of Information Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.
College of Medical Information Engineering, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, Guangzhou 510006, China.
Sensors (Basel). 2017 May 9;17(5):1073. doi: 10.3390/s17051073.
This paper provides a review of the most recent works in machine olfaction as applied to the identification of Chinese Herbal Medicines (CHMs). Due to the wide variety of CHMs, the complexity of growing sources and the diverse specifications of herb components, the quality control of CHMs is a challenging issue. Much research has demonstrated that an electronic nose (E-nose) as an advanced machine olfaction system, can overcome this challenge through identification of the complex odors of CHMs. E-nose technology, with better usability, high sensitivity, real-time detection and non-destructive features has shown better performance in comparison with other analytical techniques such as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Although there has been immense development of E-nose techniques in other applications, there are limited reports on the application of E-noses for the quality control of CHMs. The aim of current study is to review practical implementation and advantages of E-noses for robust and effective odor identification of CHMs. It covers the use of E-nose technology to study the effects of growing regions, identification methods, production procedures and storage time on CHMs. Moreover, the challenges and applications of E-nose for CHM identification are investigated. Based on the advancement in E-nose technology, odor may become a new quantitative index for quality control of CHMs and drug discovery. It was also found that more research could be done in the area of odor standardization and odor reproduction for remote sensing.
本文综述了近年来机器嗅觉在中药材（CHM）鉴别中的最新应用。由于 CHM 种类繁多、来源复杂、草药成分规格多样，因此其质量控制是一个具有挑战性的问题。大量研究表明，电子鼻（E-nose）作为一种先进的机器嗅觉系统，可以通过识别 CHM 的复杂气味来克服这一挑战。E-nose 技术具有更好的易用性、更高的灵敏度、实时检测和非破坏性等特点，与气相色谱-质谱联用（GC-MS）等其他分析技术相比，具有更好的性能。尽管 E-nose 技术在其他应用中得到了极大的发展，但关于 E-nose 在 CHM 质量控制中的应用的报道却很少。本研究旨在综述 E-nose 在 CHM 稳健、有效气味识别方面的实际应用和优势。文中介绍了 E-nose 技术在研究生长区域、鉴别方法、生产工艺和储存时间对 CHM 的影响方面的应用。此外，还探讨了 E-nose 在 CHM 鉴别中的挑战和应用。基于 E-nose 技术的进步，气味可能成为 CHM 质量控制和药物发现的新定量指标。研究还发现，在气味标准化和远程感测中的气味再现等领域，可以进行更多的研究。
