Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry combined with chemometrics to identify the origin of Chinese medicinal materials

Application of Data Fusion in Traditional Chinese Medicine: A Review

Traditional Chinese medicine is characterized by numerous chemical constituents, complex components, and unpredictable interactions among constituents. Therefore, a single analytical technique is usually unable to obtain comprehensive chemical information. Data fusion is an information processing technology that can improve the accuracy of test results by fusing data from multiple devices, which has a broad application prospect by utilizing chemometrics methods, adopting low-level, mid-level, and high-level data fusion techniques, and establishing final classification or prediction models. This paper summarizes the current status of the application of data fusion strategies based on spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, chromatography, and sensor technologies in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in light of the latest research progress of data fusion technology at home and abroad. It also gives an outlook on the development of data fusion technology in TCM analysis to provide references for the research and development of TCM.

Research progress on nanomaterial-based matrices for matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry analysis

Matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) is a novel soft ionization bio-mass spectrometry technology emerging in the 1980s, which can realize rapid detection of non-volatile, highly polar, and thermally unstable macromolecules. However, the analysis of small molecular compounds has been a major problem for MALDI-TOF MS all the time. In the MALDI analysis process based on traditional matrices, large numbers of interference peaks in the low molecular weight area and "sweet spots" phenomenon are produced, so the detection method needs to be further optimized. The promotion of matrix means the improvement of MALDI performance. In recent years, many new nanomaterial-based matrices have been successfully applied to the analysis of small molecular compounds, which makes MALDI applicable to a wider range of detection and useful in more fields such as pharmacy and environmental science. In this paper, the newly developed MALDI matrix categories in recent years are reviewed initially. Meanwhile, the potential applications, advantages and disadvantages of various matrices are analyzed. Finally, the future development prospects of nanomaterial-based matrices are also prospected.

Identification of Radix Bupleuri From Different Geographic Origins Using Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry and Support Vector Machine Algorithm

BACKGROUND

The geographic origin of Radix bupleuri is an important factor affecting its efficacy, which needs to be effectively identified.

OBJECTIVE

The goal is to enrich and develop the intelligent recognition technology applicable to the identification of the origin of traditional Chinese medicine.

METHOD

This article establishes an identification method of Radix bupleuri geographic origin based on matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) and support vector machine (SVM) algorithm. The Euclidean distance method is used to measure the similarity between Radix bupleuri samples, and the quality control chart method is applied to quantitatively describe their quality fluctuation.

RESULTS

It is found that the samples from the same origin are relatively similar and mainly fluctuate within the control limit, but the fluctuation range is large, and it is impossible to distinguish the samples from different origins. The SVM algorithm can effectively eliminate the impact of intensity fluctuations and huge data dimensions by combining the normalization of MALDI-TOF MS data and the dimensionality reduction of principal components, and finally achieve efficient identification of the origin of Radix bupleuri, with an average recognition rate of 98.5%.

CONCLUSIONS

This newly established approach for identification of the geographic origin of Radix bupleuri has been realized, and it has the advantages of objectivity and intelligence, which can be used as a reference for other medical and food-related research.

HIGHLIGHTS

A new intelligent recognition method of medicinal material origin based on MALDI-TOF MS and SVM has been established.

Application of Analytical Technologies in the Discrimination and Authentication of Herbs from Fritillaria: A Review

Medicinal plants of Fritillaria are widely distributed in numerous countries around the world and possess excellent antitussive and expectorant effects. In particular, Fritillariae Bulbus (FB) as a precious traditional medicine has thousands of years of medical history in China. Herbs of Fritillaria have a high market value and demand while limited by harsh growing circumstances and scarce wild resources. As a consequence, fraudulent behaviors are regularly engaged by the unscrupulous merchants in an attempt to reap greater profits. It is of an urgent need to evaluate the quality of Fritillaria herbs and their products using various analytical instruments and techniques. This review has scrutinized approximately 160 articles from 1995 to 2022 published on the investigation of Fritillaria herbs and related herbal products. The botanical classification of genus Fritillaria, types of counterfeits, technologies applied for differentiating Fritillaria species were comprehensively summarized and discussed in the current review. Molecular and chromatographic identification were the dominant technologies in the authentication of Fritillaria herbs. Additionally, we brought some potential and promising technologies and analytical strategies into attention, which are worthy attempting in the future researches. This review could conduce to excellent reference value for further investigations of the authenticity assessment of Fritillaria species.