Differentiation of Actaea species by NMR metabolomics analysis

Metabolomics applications for plant-based foods origin tracing, cultivars identification and processing: Feasibility and future aspects

Metabolomics, the systematic study of metabolites, is dedicated to a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of plant-based food research and plays a pivotal role in the nutritional composition and quality control of plant-based foods. The diverse chemical compositions of plant-based foods lead to variations in sensory characteristics and nutritional value. This review explores the application of the metabolomics method to plant-based food origin tracing, cultivar identification, and processing methods. It also addresses the challenges encountered and outlines future directions. Typically, when combined with other omics or techniques, synergistic and complementary information is uncovered, enhancing the classification and prediction capabilities of models. Future research should aim to evaluate all factors affecting food quality comprehensively, and this necessitates advanced research into influence mechanisms, metabolic pathways, and gene expression.

Estimating the extent of adulteration of the popular herbs black cohosh, echinacea, elder berry, ginkgo, and turmeric - its challenges and limitations

Covering: up to July 2023Botanical natural medicinal products and dietary supplements are utilized globally for their positive impacts on health and wellness. However, the effectiveness and safety of botanical products can be compromised by unintentional or intentional adulteration. The presence of adulterated botanical ingredients in the global market has been documented in the published literature but a key question, namely what the extent of adulteration is, remains to be answered. This review aims to estimate the prevalence of adulteration in preparations made from black cohosh rhizome, echinacea root or herb, elder berry, ginkgo leaf, and turmeric root/rhizome. According to the information provided in the 78 publications retrieved for this paper, 818 of 2995 samples were reported to be adulterated and/or mislabeled. Ginkgo leaf samples (n = 533) had the highest adulteration rate with 56.7%, followed by black cohosh rhizome (n = 322) samples with 42.2%, echinacea root/herb (n = 200) with 28.5%, elder berry (n = 695) with 17.1%, and turmeric root/rhizome (n = 1247) with 16.5%. Products sold as licensed or registered herbal medicines were found to have a lower risk of adulteration compared to products sold as dietary/food supplements. The data show that the adulteration rate substantially differs from one ingredient to the other. Due to the significant limitations of the available data upon which the estimated extent of adulteration is based, and the rapidly changing botanical dietary supplement market, conclusions from the five herbs examined in this publication cannot be applied to other botanicals traded in the global market. However, the data clearly show that a substantial portion of the botanical dietary supplements do not contain what is claimed on their labels.

Advances in Microbial NMR Metabolomics

Confidently, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is the most informative technique in analytical chemistry and its use as an analytical platform in metabolomics is well proven. This chapter aims to present NMR as a viable tool for microbial metabolomics discussing its fundamental aspects and applications in metabolomics using some chosen examples.

Advances in Fingerprint Analysis for Standardization and Quality Control of Herbal Medicines

Herbal drugs or herbal medicines (HMs) have a long-standing history as natural remedies for preventing and curing diseases. HMs have garnered greater interest during the past decades due to their broad, synergistic actions on the physiological systems and relatively lower incidence of adverse events, compared to synthetic drugs. However, assuring reproducible quality, efficacy, and safety from herbal drugs remains a challenging task. HMs typically consist of many constituents whose presence and quantity may vary among different sources of materials. Fingerprint analysis has emerged as a very useful technique to assess the quality of herbal drug materials and formulations for establishing standardized herbal products. Rather than using a single or two marker(s), fingerprinting techniques take great consideration of the complexity of herbal drugs by evaluating the whole chemical profile and extracting a common pattern to be set as a criterion for assessing the individual material or formulation. In this review, we described and assessed various fingerprinting techniques reported to date, which are applicable to the standardization and quality control of HMs. We also evaluated the application of multivariate data analysis or chemometrics in assisting the analysis of the complex datasets from the determination of HMs. To ensure that these methods yield reliable results, we reviewed the validation status of the methods and provided perspectives on those. Finally, we concluded by highlighting major accomplishments and presenting a gap analysis between the existing techniques and what is needed to continue moving forward.

NMR technique and methodology in botanical health product analysis and quality control

Botanicals have played an important role in maintaining human health and well-being throughout history. During the past few decades in particular, the use of botanical health products has gained more popularity. Whereas, quality, safety and efficacy concerns have continuously been critical issues due to the intrinsic chemical complexity of botanicals. Chemical analytical technologies play an imperative role in addressing these issues. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has proven to be a powerful and useful tool for the investigation of botanical health products. In this review, NMR techniques and methodologies that have been successfully applied to the research and development of botanical health products in all stages, from plants to products, are discussed and summarized. Furthermore, applications of NMR together with other analytical techniques in a variety of domains of botanical health products investigation, such as plant species differentiation, adulteration detection, and bio-activity evaluation, are discussed and illustrated with typical examples. This article provides an overview of the potential uses of NMR techniques and methodologies in an attempt to further promote their recognition and utilization in the field of botanical health products analysis and quality control.