Can Electrochemical Sensors Be Used for Identification and Phylogenetic Studies in Lamiaceae?

Da Wang,Dongling Li,Fei Chen,Yuhong Zheng,Li Fu,Shichao Zhao,Yonghua Gu

doi:10.3390/s21248216

Da Wang, Dongling Li + Show 5 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/s21248216

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Abstract

Electrochemical sensors have shown potential in recent years for plant species identification and phylogenetic studies. These works have been used to investigate the affinities of different species in many genera. However, the ability of electrochemical sensors to study relationships between different genera within a family has not been investigated. In this work, we selected 31 species in the Labiatae and 5 exotaxa as subjects to investigate the feasibility of electrochemical sensors at the genus level. The results show that electrochemical sensors are still very effective for the identification of these plants. Different pattern recognition techniques can make the identification more efficient. Also, the fingerprint profiles collected by the sensors can be used for phylogenetic studies of Labiatae. The phylogram divides all the species into five clusters, where the exotaxa are in one cluster. Species in the Labiatae are mainly distributed in four other clusters. Importantly, the different genera of species all showed close affinities, representing that electrochemical fingerprinting can well distinguish the affinities between the different genera. The results of this work demonstrate the great potential of electrochemical sensors in the study of plant phylogeny. Its application is not limited to the study at the species level, but can be extended to the genus level.

Highlights

Electrochemical sensors capture the electrochemical oxidation and reduction signals of electrochemically active substances in a sample
Leaves of Agastache rugosa, Ajuga multiflora, Calamintha debilis, Galeobdolon chinense, Isodon nervosus, Lamium barbatum, Leonurus japonicus, Lycopus lucidus, Mentha canadensis, Mentha crispate, Mentha spicata, Mentha vagans, Monarda didyma, Ocimum basilicum, Origanum vulgare, Perilla frutescens, Physostegia virginiana, Prunella vulgaris, Salvia elegans, Salvia leucantha, Salvia miltiorrhiza, Salvia splendens, Salvia meiliensis, Salvia uliginosa, Salvia cavaleriei, Stachys japonica, Elsholtzia cyprianii, Hyptis suaveolens, Rosmarinus officinalis, Vitex negundo, Buddleja lindleyana, Scrophularia ningpoensis, Peristrophe japonica, Asystasiella neesiana and Nepeta cataria were supplied by Nanjing Botanic Garden
Plant leaves can have certain differences in their chemical composition because of the different light areas received [19], the different heights of growth [20], etc. It can be seen from the electrochemical fingerprint that all species exhibited oxidation peaks in the anodic scan, which was caused by the oxidation of some electrochemically active substances, such as flavonoids and polyphenols [21,22], in leaf tissues

Summary

Introduction

Electrochemical sensors capture the electrochemical oxidation and reduction signals of electrochemically active substances in a sample. The use of electrochemical techniques for the recording of electrochemically active substances in plant tissues has been shown to be useful for species identification and species level phylogenetic studies [1,2,3]. Electrochemical sensors have been successfully used for species identification and phylogenetic studies, such as Lycoris [7], Pueraria [8], Chimonanthus [9], and Taxodium [10] These methodological explorations have focused on the study of relationships between different species within a genus. We believe that the use of fingerprint profiles collected by electrochemical sensors for other genus studies still needs to be carried out, the time has come to verify the feasibility of this methodology for the investigation of affinities between different genera.

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