Spice authentication by fully automated chemical analysis with integrated chemometrics.

Spices had a worldwide market value greater than $20 billion in 2020. The price per kilogram or ton is high for many spices often due to intensive labor and handling requirements in their preparation, with black pepper as one example. Spices are produced in many countries, in plots ranging from fractions of a hectare to multihectare mechanized operations. From harvest through production and to final market package, spices pass through several steps in the supply chain that provide ample opportunity for fraud. Contamination with harmful plant materials, ingredient substitutions, and adulteration in spices are frequently encountered. In addition, spices in specific geographic regions can have distinctive characteristics from the localized growing conditions giving rise to changes in terpene profiles and other flavor components, creating variation in market price based on country of origin. The research reported here details a system for automated chemical analysis of 170 terpenes in spices and other botanicals by gas chromatography (GC), through enhancements to a proven bacterial identification system. The system integrates pattern recognition searches of custom spice databases to identify country of origin of most spices, aiding in the authentication of spices and detection of fraudulent ingredients.

Cinnamon - Differentiation of Four Species by Linking Classical Botany to an Automated Chromatographic Authentication System.

One of the world's oldest spices, cinnamon is also one of the most popular. Species of the genus Cinnamomum offer a variety of extractable oils with aroma and flavor characteristics of importance to the flavor industry, so differentiating cinnamon samples for culinary-based applications is very important. Cinnamon also has reported health benefits associated with specific phytochemical constituents, but its composition can vary greatly depending on species and source region. A substantial amount of the research reported on cinnamon does not provide thorough documentation of the source and taxonomic identification of the study material, a very common issue with studies of food and medicinal plants. In the interest of providing some clarity to the discussion of the health benefits and culinary attributes of the different cinnamon types in the marketplace, we offer the results of a long-term chemotaxonomic study of cinnamon samples sourced from different regions of the world and link those chemical data to classical taxonomic identification of the source plants. We provide details of the effective use of an automated chemotaxonomic analytical method to differentiate cinnamons from various geographic regions. Also included are chromatographic data for the polyphenolic/procyanidin fractions of each species, as cinnamon type-A procyanidins are often the purported source of biological activity in cinnamon and cinnamon extracts.

Mycobacterium grossiae sp. nov., a rapidly growing, scotochromogenic species isolated from human clinical respiratory and blood culture specimens.

A previously undescribed, rapidly growing, scotochromogenic species of the genus Mycobacterium (represented by strains PB739T and GK) was isolated from two clinical sources - the sputum of a 76-year-old patient with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, history of tuberculosis exposure and Mycobacterium avium complex isolated years prior; and the blood of a 15-year-old male with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia status post bone marrow transplant. The isolates grew as dark orange colonies at 25-37 °C after 5 days, sharing features in common with other closely related species. Analysis of the complete 16S rRNA gene sequence (1492 bp) of strain PB739T demonstrated that the isolate shared 98.8 % relatedness with Mycobacterium wolinskyi. Partial 429 bp hsp65 and 744 bp rpoB region V sequence analyses revealed that the sequences of the novel isolate shared 94.8 and 92.1 % similarity with those of Mycobacterium neoaurum and Mycobacterium aurum, respectively. Biochemical profiling, antimicrobial susceptibility testing, HPLC/gas-liquid chromatography analyses and multilocus sequence typing support the taxonomic status of these isolates (PB739T and GK) as representatives of a novel species. Both isolates were susceptible to the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute recommended antimicrobials for susceptibility testing of rapidly growing mycobacteria including amikacin, ciprofloxacin, moxifloxacin, doxycycline/minocycline, imipenem, linezolid, clarithromycin and trimethropin/sulfamethoxazole. Both isolates PB739T and GK showed intermediate susceptibility to cefoxitin. We propose the name Mycobacterium grossiae sp. nov. for this novel species and have deposited the type strain in the DSMZ and CIP culture collections. The type strain is PB739T (=DSM 104744T=CIP 111318T).