ABSTRACT
Chinese materia medica (CMM) is a complex system, which has characteristics of multiple components, diversity efficacy, and unpredictable relation among components, etc. Thus, constructing the quality evaluation and quality control model based on multi-disciplinary and multi-source information fusion is an innovative research idea for quality standards of CMM. The quality control system should been fully established to cover quality integrity and efficacy specificity of CMM based on the core concept of quality marker. Traditional quality assessment methods based on characteristic feature, chemical analysis including multiple chemical components and elementary substances, and biological evaluation were integrated by data fusion methods in this system. The correlation of the organic and elemental components with the specific effects should be established in order to verify the material basis. Finally, the Q-markers (including potential elemental Q-markers) with unique characteristics relevant to specific effect were analyzed and defined. The integrated quality indexes of Q-markers relevant to specific effect were calculated. This proposed integrated quality control system based on multi-source information fusion methods would enrich and perfect the quality evaluation of CMM.
ABSTRACT
Quality evaluation plays a vital role in ensuring safety and effectiveness of Chinese materia medica (CMM). Microscopic and morphological technologies can be used to distinguish CMM's characteristics, such as shape, size, texture, section, and smell, for authenticity and quality control of CMM. The microscopic and morphological applications of novel micro-technology, colorimeter, and texture analyzer for CMM identification are summarized and the future prospect is discussed in this paper. Various styles and complex sources of CMM are systemically reviewed, including cormophyte medicinal materials, fruit and seeds, pollen grain, and spore materials.
Subject(s)
Drugs, Chinese Herbal , Chemistry , Materia Medica , Chemistry , Microscopy , Methods , Plants, Medicinal , Chemistry , Quality ControlABSTRACT
The blending end-point determination of Angong Niuhuang Wan (AGNH) is a key technology problem. The control strategy based on quality by design (QbD) concept proposes a whole blending end-point determination method, and provides a methodology for blending the Chinese materia medica containing mineral substances. Based on QbD concept, the laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) was used to assess the cinnabar, realgar and pearl powder blending of AGNH in a pilot-scale experiment, especially the whole blending end-point in this study. The blending variability of three mineral medicines including cinnabar, realgar and pearl powder, was measured by moving window relative standard deviation (MWRSD) based on LIBS. The time profiles of realgar and pearl powder did not produce consistent results completely, but all of them reached even blending at the last blending stage, so that the whole proposal blending end point was determined. LIBS is a promising Process Analytical Technology (PAT) for process control. Unlike other elemental determination technologies such ICP-OES, LIBS does not need an elaborate digestion procedure, which is a promising and rapid technique to understand the blending process of Chinese materia medica (CMM) containing cinnabar, realgar and other mineral traditional Chinese medicine. This study proposed a novel method for the research of large varieties of traditional Chinese medicines..
ABSTRACT
Traditional identification method is an effective approach to evaluate the quality for Chinese herbal medicine (CHM). Color is one of the important indicators for quality evaluation due to high correlation with quality. Therefore, a new theory of quality control for CHM based on color grading was discussed in this article. The scientific nature of this theory was illustrated by investigating the relation between CHM color, medicinal properties and active compound contents. The effect of origins, collecting time, processing, and storage on the CHM color was also analyzed. To overcome the drawback of the traditional identification method, the novel objective color evaluation methods such as spectrocolorimeter and machine vision technology were reviewed, including the application, advantages and disadvantages in Chinese medicine field, and the significance of color sense digitalization was illustrated finally.
ABSTRACT
The laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) was applied to perform a qualitative elementary analysis on four precious Tibetan medicines, i. e. Renqing Mangjue, Renqing Changjue, 25-herb coral pills and 25-herb pearl pills. The specific spectra of the four Tibetan medicines were established. In the experiment, Nd: YAG and 1 064 nm-baseband pulse laser were adopted to collect the spectra. A laser beam focused on the surface of the samples to generate plasma. Its spectral signal was detected by using spectrograph. Based on the National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST) database, LIBS spectral lines were indentified. The four Tibetan medicines mainly included Ca, Na, K, Mg and other elements and C-N molecular band. Specifically, Fe was detected in Renqing Changjue and 25-herb pearl pills; heavy mental elements Hg and Cu were shown in Renqing Mangjue and Renqing Changjue; Ag was found in Renqing Changjue. The results demonstrated that LIBS is a reliable and rapid multi-element analysis on the four Tibetan medicines. With Real-time, rapid and nondestructive advantages, LIBS has a wide application prospect in the element analysis on ethnic medicines.