Identification of geographical origins of Astragalus membranaceus in China using electrochemical fingerprinting

Abstract

Astragalus membranaceus quality differs across different geographical locations. The electrochemical fingerprint technique is a detection technology that captures the electrochemical activity of a sample. The electrochemical fingerprint feature represents each sample, and can collect information about the electrochemical active components in traditional Chinese medicine, which can be used to distinguish between different medicinal materials and verify their authenticity. In this study, electrochemical fingerprinting was used to collect data from three different geographical locations of Astragalus membranaceus. We employed differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) to establish an electrochemical fingerprint of Astragalus membranaceus, reflecting the proportional content of various components. Ten potential markers were selected from the collected data for similarity calculations. Additionally, the original fingerprint data was used for cluster analysis and heatmap construction. The results demonstrate the potential of electrochemical fingerprinting as a technique for identifying the origin of traditional Chinese medicinal materials. This study explored the feasibility of using electrochemical fingerprint sensors for identifying the origin of the same medicinal material from different geographical locations.