论文部分内容阅读
Fatty acid profiling has been widely used in the bacteria species identification, we hypothesized that fatty acid characteristics might discriminate the Panax herbs according to species.To test the hypothesis, fatty acids of Panax species, including Panax ginseng, Panax notoginseng and Panax quinquefolius, was characterized and compared using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) followed by multivariate statistical analysis.The content of investigated 11 fatty acids, myristic acid, pentadecanoic acid, palmitic acid, palmitoleic acid, heptadecanoic acid, stearic acid, oleic acid, linoleic acid, α-linolenic acid, arachidic acid and eicosadienoic acid, obviously varied among three species, suggesting each species had its own fatty acid pattern.Principal component analysis and hierarchical clustering analysis, based on the absolute and relative contents of fatty acid, showed that 30 tested samples could be clearly differentiate according to the species.The results demonstrated that GC-MS-based fatty acid profiling coupled by multivariate analysis provided reliable platform to classify the Panax herbs, which is helpful in ensuring their safety and efficacy.