A comparative study of aged and contemporary Chinese herbal materials by using delayed luminescence technique

Yusheng Jia; Mengmeng Sun; Yuhua Shi; Zhihui Zhu; Eduard van Wijk; Roeland van Wijk; Tinde van Andel; Mei Wang

doi:10.1186/s13020-020-0287-0

A comparative study of aged and contemporary Chinese herbal materials by using delayed luminescence technique

Chin Med. 2020 Jan 15:15:6. doi: 10.1186/s13020-020-0287-0. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Yusheng Jia^{1

2}, Mengmeng Sun^{1

3

4}, Yuhua Shi⁵, Zhihui Zhu⁵, Eduard van Wijk⁶, Roeland van Wijk⁶, Tinde van Andel^{7

2}, Mei Wang^{1

8

9}

Affiliations

¹ 1LU-European Center for Chinese Medicine and Natural Compounds, Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Sylviusweg 72, 2333 BE Leiden, The Netherlands.
² 3Naturalis Biodiversity Centre, Darwinweg 2, 2333 CR Leiden, The Netherlands.
³ 4Changchun University of Chinese Medicine, No. 1035, Boshuo Rd, Jingyue Economic Development District, 130117 Changchun, China.
⁴ 9State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences, University of Macau, N22 Avenida da Universidade, Taipa, Macau.
⁵ 5Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700 China.
⁶ Meluna Research, Koppelsedijk 1-a, 4191 LC Geldermalsen, The Netherlands.
⁷ 2Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Sylviusweg 72, 2333 BE Leiden, The Netherlands.
⁸ 7SU BioMedicine, Post Bus 546, 2300 AM Leiden, The Netherlands.
⁹ Shenzhen Huakai Traditional Chinese Medicine and Natural Medicine Research Center, Shenzhen, 518114 China.

Abstract

Background: Investigation of aged Chinese herbal materials will help us to understand their use and sources in ancient time and broaden the historical perspective of Chinese material medica. To reach this aim, the basic understanding of aged herbal materials, including physical and chemical characters, is of great importance. Delayed luminescence (DL) technique was developed as a rapid, direct, systemic, objective and sample loss-free tool to characterize the properties of Chinese herbal materials. In this study, we measured DL values in aged Chinese herbal materials that were transported from Asia to Europe during the 20th century and stored in Naturalis Biodiversity Center and the Utrecht University museum, and compared these with modern material of the same species.

Methods: A hyperbolic function was used to extract four properties from the DL curves of Chinese herbal material from 1900, the 1950s and recently harvested products. Statistical tools, including the Student's t test, One-way analysis of variance and Principal Component Analysis, were used to differentiate the DL properties of aged and contemporary collections of Glycyrrhiza spp. Curcuma aromatica Salisb., Zingiber officinale Roscoe, Alpinia officinarum Hance and Acorus calamus L.

Results: Our results showed that DL properties were significantly different between historical and contemporary Chinese herbal materials. Changes in DL values were species-dependent: the effects of storage time of DL properties were specific for each species. These outcomes help us not only in the identification of historical Chinese medicine products but also provides valuable data of the effect of storage time on herbal materials.

Conclusion: The simple, direct, rapid, and inexpensive measurements offered by DL provide a novel tool to assess the taxonomic identity of Chinese and other herbal materials and assess the differences in chemical properties with increasing storage time. Our results contribute to the further development of novel digital tools for the quality control of herbal materials.

Keywords: Aged herbal materials, quality control; Chinese herbal medicine; Delayed luminescence.