Stejarul Research Centre for Biological Sciences, National Institute of Research and Development for Biological Sciences, Alexandru cel Bun Street, 6, Piatra Neamț, 610004, Romania.
Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1172, Blindern, Oslo, 0318, Norway.
BMC Complement Med Ther. 2023 Jul 21;23(1):257. doi: 10.1186/s12906-023-04091-9.
Milk thistle is one of the most popular hepatoprotectants, and is often sold in combination with other ingredients. Botanical supplements are known to be vulnerable to contamination and adulteration, and emerging technologies show promise to improve their quality control.
Untargeted and semi-targeted metabolomics based on UHPLC-QTOF-ESIMS techniques, UV spectrometry, and DNA metabarcoding using Illumina MiSeq were used to authenticate eighteen milk thistle botanical formulations (teas, capsules, tablets, emulsion).
Untargeted metabolomics separated 217 molecules and by multivariate analysis the discrimination between the different preparations was established. The semi-targeted metabolomics focused on 63 phytochemicals, mainly silymarin flavonolignans and flavonoids, that may be considered as putative biomarkers of authenticity. All formulations contained molecules from silymarin complexes at different levels. The quantitative evaluation of silybins was done using in parallel UV spectrometry and UHPLC-QTOF-ESIMS and their correlations were compared. DNA metabarcoding detected milk thistle in eleven out of sixteen retained preparations, whereas two others had incomplete evidence of milk thistle despite metabolomics validating specific metabolites, e.g., silymarin complex, identified and quantified in all samples. Meanwhile, the DNA metabarcoding provided insights into the total species composition allowing the interpretation of the results in a broad context.
Our study emphasizes that combining spectroscopic, chromatographic, and genetic techniques bring complementary information to guarantee the quality of the botanical formulations.
水飞蓟是最受欢迎的保肝剂之一，常与其他成分组合销售。植物补充剂容易受到污染和掺假，新兴技术有望改善其质量控制。
基于 UHPLC-QTOF-ESIMS 技术、紫外光谱和使用 Illumina MiSeq 的 DNA 代谢组学的非靶向和半靶向代谢组学，用于鉴定 18 种水飞蓟植物配方（茶、胶囊、片剂、乳液）。
非靶向代谢组学分离出 217 种分子，通过多元分析建立了不同制剂之间的区分。半靶向代谢组学集中于 63 种植物化学物质，主要是水飞蓟宾类黄酮和类黄酮，可作为真实性的推定标志物。所有制剂均以不同水平含有水飞蓟宾复合物的分子。使用平行紫外光谱和 UHPLC-QTOF-ESIMS 同时进行的水飞蓟宾定量评估，并比较了它们的相关性。DNA 代谢组学在 16 种保留制剂中的 11 种中检测到水飞蓟，而另外两种尽管代谢组学验证了特定代谢物（例如，所有样品中鉴定和定量的水飞蓟宾复合物），但仍缺乏水飞蓟的完整证据。同时，DNA 代谢组学提供了有关总物种组成的信息，从而可以在更广泛的背景下解释结果。
我们的研究强调，结合光谱、色谱和遗传技术可以提供互补信息，以保证植物配方的质量。
