Ningxia Medical University Pharmacy College, Yinchuan, 750004, Ningxia, China.
Ningxia Research Center of Modern Hui Medicine Engineering and Technology, Yinchuan, 750004, Ningxia, China.
Sci Rep. 2017 Oct 3;7(1):12577. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-12933-z.
Inorganic elements are important components of medicinal herbs, and provide valuable experimental evidence for the quality evaluation and control of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). In this study, to investigate the relationship between the inorganic elemental fingerprint and geographical origin identification of cultivated Polygala tenuifolia, 41 elemental fingerprints of P. tenuifolia from four major polygala-producing regions (Shanxi, Hebei, Henan, and Shaanxi) were evaluated to determine the importance of inorganic elements to cultivated P. tenuifolia. A total of 15 elemental (B, Ca, Cl, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, N, Mo, S, Sr, P, and Zn) concentrations of cultivated P. tenuifolia were measured using inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS). The element composition samples were classified by radar plot, elemental fingerprint, and multivariate data analyses, such as hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), principle component analysis (PCA), and discriminant analysis (DA). This study shows that radar plots and multivariate data analysis can satisfactorily distinguish the geographical origin of cultivated P. tenuifolia. Furthermore, PCA results revealed that N, Cu, K, Mo, Sr, Ca, and Zn are the characteristic elements of cultivated P. tenuifolia. Therefore, multi-element fingerprinting coupled with multivariate statistical techniques can be considered an effective tool to discriminate geographical origin of cultivated P. tenuifolia.
无机元素是中药材的重要组成部分，为中药质量评价和控制提供了有价值的实验依据。本研究旨在探讨无机元素指纹图谱与栽培远志地理来源鉴定的关系，采用电感耦合等离子体质谱法（ICP-MS）测定了来自山西、河北、河南和陕西四个主要远志产区的 41 个远志栽培品的 15 种无机元素（B、Ca、Cl、Cu、Fe、K、Mg、Mn、Na、N、Mo、S、Sr、P 和 Zn）浓度。利用雷达图、元素指纹图谱和多元数据分析（如层次聚类分析（HCA）、主成分分析（PCA）和判别分析（DA））对元素组成样品进行分类。研究表明，雷达图和多元数据分析可以很好地区分栽培远志的地理来源。此外，PCA 结果表明，N、Cu、K、Mo、Sr、Ca 和 Zn 是栽培远志的特征元素。因此，多元指纹图谱结合多元统计技术可以作为鉴别栽培远志地理来源的有效工具。
