title: Discrimination of Dendrobium officinale and its common adulterants by combination of normal light and fluorescence microscopy.
abstract: The stems of Dendrobium officinale Kimura et Migo, named Tie-pi-shi-hu, is one of the most endangered and precious species in China. Because of its various pharmacodynamic effects, D. officinale is widely recognized as a high-quality health food in China and other countries in south and south-east Asia. With the rising interest of D. officinale, its products have a high price due to a limited supply. This high price has led to the proliferation of adulterants in the market. To ensure the safe use of D. officinale, a fast and convenient method combining normal and fluorescence microscopy was applied in the present study to distinguish D. officinale from three commonly used adulterants including Zi-pi-shi-hu (D. devonianum), Shui-cao-shi-hu (D. aphyllum), Guang-jie-shi-hu (D. gratiosissimum). The result demonstrated that D. officinale could be identified by the characteristic "two hat-shaped" vascular bundle sheath observed under the fluorescence microscopy and the distribution of raphides under normal light microscopy. The other three adulterants could be discriminated by the vascular bundle differences and the distribution of raphides under normal light microscopy. This work indicated that combination of normal light and fluorescence microscopy is a fast and efficient technique to scientifically distinguish D. officinale from the commonly confused species.
authors.affiliation: College of Pharmaceutical Science, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, China. chuchu@zjut.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Chu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chu
authors.affiliation: College of Pharmaceutical Science, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, China. 552444577@qq.com.
authors.forename: Huimin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: Guangdong Food and Drug Vocational College, Guangzhou 510520, China. xiali516@126.com.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.affiliation: College of Pharmaceutical Science, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, China. chengdp@zjut.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Dongping
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: College of Pharmaceutical Science, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, China. yjz@zjut.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jizhong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: School of Chinese Medicine, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Hong Kong China. linzhu912@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhu
mesh_terms: D031667:Dendrobium / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000145:classification* / Q000166:cytology*; D008853:Microscopy / Q000379:methods*; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence