title: Elemental fingerprinting of Hypericum perforatum (St John's Wort) herb and preparations using ICP-OES and chemometrics.
abstract: St. John's wort (SJW) (Hypericum perforatum) is a herbal remedy commonly used to treat mild depression. The elemental profiles of 54 samples (i.e., dry herbs, tablets and capsules) were evaluated by monitoring 25 elements using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES). The major elemental constituents in the SJW samples were Ca (300-199,000μg/g), Mg (410-3,530μg/g), Al (4.4-900μg/g), Fe (1.154-760μg/g), Mn (2.4-261μg/g), Sr (0.88-83.6μg/g), and Zn (7-64μg/g). For the sixteen elements that could be reliably quantified, principal component analysis (PCA) was used to investigate underlying patterns in the data. PCA models identified 7 key elements (i.e., Ba, Ca, Cd, Mg, Mo, Ni and Y), which described 85% of the variance in the dataset in the first three principal components. The PCA approach resulted in a general delineation between the three different formulations and provides a basis for monitoring product quality in this manner.
authors.affiliation: University of Hertfordshire, Department of Pharmacy, School of Life and Medical Sciences, College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, United Kingdom,. Electronic address: JD-Owen@hotmail.co.uk.
authors.forename: Jade D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Owen
authors.affiliation: University of Hertfordshire, Department of Pharmacy, School of Life and Medical Sciences, College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, United Kingdom,. Electronic address: s.b.kirton3@herts.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Stewart B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Kirton
authors.affiliation: University of Hertfordshire, Department of Pharmacy, School of Life and Medical Sciences, College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, United Kingdom,. Electronic address: s.j.evans@herts.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Sara J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Evans
authors.affiliation: University of Hertfordshire, Department of Pharmacy, School of Life and Medical Sciences, College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, United Kingdom,. Electronic address: j.stair@herts.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Jacqueline L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Stair
mesh_terms: D020902:Hypericum / Q000737:chemistry*; D057230:Limit of Detection; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D013057:Spectrum Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D014131:Trace Elements / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D014131:Trace Elements
keywords: Hypericum perforatum; ICP-OES; Metal content; Principal component analysis; St. John’s wort