Rapidly identification of ginseng from different origins using three-step infrared macro-fingerprinting technique

Abstract

Ginseng is widely used all over the world for its unique properties. To evaluate ginseng quality, identifying differences from its origin is necessary. In this experiment, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), second-order derivative spectroscopy (SD-IR) with dual-index sequence analysis (DISA) and two-dimensional infrared correlation spectroscopy (2D-IR-COS) were used to investigate the differences in ginseng from 10 origins. In the FTIR spectra, the absorption peaks of these 10 samples showed a certain amount of similarity. S3, S6, and S7 could be successfully distinguished from the other seven samples. In the SD-IR spectra, S3 and S6 had the highest proportion of common peaks at 86.7 %, showing that their compositions and contents were more similar; in contrast, the proportion of variant peaks of the S1 and S8 was 90.9 %, suggesting that they were more distantly related. Using auto peaks combined with Pearson correlation coefficient, the band 1800∼900 cm−1 with large differences among the 10 samples was selected for analysis. This study successfully identified ginseng of 10 samples using SD-IR spectra and 2D-IR-COS. These results are important references to the quality control and traceability of ginseng. They are also useful for the analysis of other herbs and natural products.