title: Metabolic fingerprinting of Ephedra species using 1H-NMR spectroscopy and principal component analysis.
abstract: The metabolomic analysis of Ephedra species was performed using 1H-NMR spectroscopy and multivariate data analysis. A broad range of metabolites could be detected by 1H-NMR spectroscopy without any chromatographic separation. The principal component analysis used to reduce the huge data set obtained from the 1H-NMR spectra of the plant extracts clearly discriminated three different Ephedra species. The major differences in Ephedra sinica, Ephedra intermedia and Ephedra distachya var. distachya were found to be due to benzoic acid analogues in the aqueous fraction and ephedrine-type alkaloids in the organic fraction. Based on this metabolomic recognition, one of nine commercial Ephedra materials evaluated was shown to be a mixture of Ephedra species. This method will be a useful tool for chemotaxonomic analysis and authentification of Ephedra species including quality control of plant materials.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmacognosy, Section Metabolomics, Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Hye Kyong
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Young Hae
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Cornelis
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Erkelens
authors.forename: Alfons W M
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Lefeber
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Verpoorte
mesh_terms: D029789:Ephedra / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D006859:Hydrogen; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy / Q000379:methods*; D010936:Plant Extracts / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000378:metabolism; D025341:Principal Component Analysis / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D010936:Plant Extracts; D006859:Hydrogen