title: Determination of element contents in herbal drugs: chemometric approach.
abstract: The elemental content of 23 commercial herbal drugs was evaluated and multivariate analysis such as principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) were performed with aim to know the relationship among the elements in the herbal drugs. Among the 13 elements investigated K (8096.97), Na (581.53), Cu (2.06); Mg (678.4); Fe (476.93), Al (321.5), Co (0.22); Zn (4.46), Ni (0.56); Mn (25.77); Pb (13.33); and Cr (13.18)mg/kg dry weight, respectively, were found at high concentrations in Eclipta prostrata; Adhatoda vasica; Phyllanthus amarus; Hybanthus enneaspermus; Cardiospermum halicacabum; Acacia nilotica; and Denolix elata. Interestingly, the toxic element Cd was below detectable level in all the samples and Cr, Pb and Ni were lower than the permissible limit as prescribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO). This study clearly shows that PCA and HCA procedures appear useful tools for the differentiation and classification of herbal drugs using the profile of elements.
authors.affiliation: Centre of Advanced Study in Marine Biology, Faculty of Marine Science, Annamalai University, Parangipettai 608 502, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors.forename: Radjassegarin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Arumugam
authors.forename: Rengasamy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ragupathi Raja Kannan
authors.forename: Jayabalan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jayalakshmi
authors.forename: Karunamoorthy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Manivannan
authors.forename: Gopalraj
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Karthikai Devi
authors.forename: Perumal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Anantharaman
mesh_terms: D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010946:Plants, Medicinal / Q000737:chemistry*; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D014131:Trace Elements / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D014131:Trace Elements