Centella asiatica is a plant well recognised by its use in traditional medicines owing to its vast therapeutic applications,being also used in plant food supplements(PFS).The increased popularity of this species has p...Centella asiatica is a plant well recognised by its use in traditional medicines owing to its vast therapeutic applications,being also used in plant food supplements(PFS).The increased popularity of this species has prompted the need of tools to authenticate the botanical origin of derived products.This work proposes the first real-time PCR method to detect and quantify C.asiatica in herbal products and PFS.The method targeted a nuclear marker with a TaqMan probe,addressing the influence of plant matrix.C.asiatica-specific assay detected 10 pg/reaction of DNA.The influence of six different plant species(artichoke,bacopa,horsetail,green tea,ginger and ginkgo)was evaluated in C.asiatica detection and quantification.Based on the low matrix effect and relevance,green tea(Camelia sinensis)was selected for reference mixtures to propose a calibration model within 0.5–25%(w/w)of C.asiatica in C.sinensis.The method was successfully validated using blind mixtures and further applied to analyse 15 commercial samples,suggesting that 36%of the infusion samples and 100%of PFS were adulterated/mislabelled due to species substitution.Herein,a novel approach is proposed as a quantitative powerful tool to authenticate C.asiatica herbal products,ensuring the compliance of labelling.展开更多
文摘Centella asiatica is a plant well recognised by its use in traditional medicines owing to its vast therapeutic applications,being also used in plant food supplements(PFS).The increased popularity of this species has prompted the need of tools to authenticate the botanical origin of derived products.This work proposes the first real-time PCR method to detect and quantify C.asiatica in herbal products and PFS.The method targeted a nuclear marker with a TaqMan probe,addressing the influence of plant matrix.C.asiatica-specific assay detected 10 pg/reaction of DNA.The influence of six different plant species(artichoke,bacopa,horsetail,green tea,ginger and ginkgo)was evaluated in C.asiatica detection and quantification.Based on the low matrix effect and relevance,green tea(Camelia sinensis)was selected for reference mixtures to propose a calibration model within 0.5–25%(w/w)of C.asiatica in C.sinensis.The method was successfully validated using blind mixtures and further applied to analyse 15 commercial samples,suggesting that 36%of the infusion samples and 100%of PFS were adulterated/mislabelled due to species substitution.Herein,a novel approach is proposed as a quantitative powerful tool to authenticate C.asiatica herbal products,ensuring the compliance of labelling.
