title: Chromatographic fingerprint analysis of metabolites in natural and artificial agarwood using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry combined with chemometric methods.
abstract: Agarwood is a resinous material formed in wounded Aquilaria sinensis in China, which is widely used as an effective traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). This study is aimed to use gas chromatography-mass spectrometry combined with chemometric methods to create reliable criteria for accurate identification of natural agarwood and artificial agarwood, as well as for quality evaluation of artificial agarwood. Natural agarwood and artificial agarwood (stimulated by formic acid or formic acid plus fungal inoculation) were used as standards and controls for the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and multivariate analysis. The identification criteria developed were applied to commercial agarwood. A reliable criteria including correlation coefficient of GC-MS fingerprint of natural agarwood and 22 markers of metabolism in natural and artificial agarwood was constructed. Compared with chemically stimulated agarwood (formic acid) and in terms of the 22 markers, artificial agarwood obtained by formic acid stimulation and fungal inoculation were much closer to natural agarwood. The study demonstrates that the chemical components of artificial agarwood obtained by comprehensive stimulated method (formic acid plus fungal inoculation) are much closer to the natural agarwood than those obtained by chemically stimulated method (formic acid), as times goes by. A reliable criteria containing correlation coefficient of GC-MS fingerprint of natural agarwood and 22 metabolism markers can be used to evaluate the quality of the agarwood. As an application case, three samples were identified as natural agarwood from the 25 commercial agarwood by using the evaluation method.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy Sciences, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, Guangzhou 510006, PR China. Electronic address: gaoxxia91@163.com.
authors.forename: Xiaoxia
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy Sciences, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, Guangzhou 510006, PR China.
authors.forename: Mingrong
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy Sciences, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, Guangzhou 510006, PR China.
authors.forename: Shaofeng
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Analysis and Testing Center, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, Guangzhou 510006, PR China.
authors.forename: Xiaoling
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy Sciences, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, Guangzhou 510006, PR China.
authors.forename: Xiaoying
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy Sciences, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, Guangzhou 510006, PR China.
authors.forename: Zhaojian
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhong
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Applied Microbiology Southern China, Guangdong Institute of Microbiology, Guangzhou 510070, PR China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Applied Microbiology Southern China, Guangdong Institute of Microbiology, Guangzhou 510070, PR China. Electronic address: wmzhang58@qq.com.
authors.forename: Weimin
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D029645:Thymelaeaceae / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D014934:Wood / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers
keywords: Agarwood; Aquilaria sinensis (Lour.) Gilg; Chromatographic fingerprinting; Multivariate analysis