Authentication of the 31 species of toxic and potent chinese materia medica by microscopic technique assisted by ICP‐MS analysis, part 4: Four kinds of toxic and potent mineral arsenical CMMs

Abstract

Toxic and Potent Chinese Materia Medica (T/PCMM) is a special and very important category of Chinese medicines. They have long been used in traditional medical practice and are being used more and more widely throughout the world in recent years. As there may be many fatal toxic effects caused by misusing or confusion of T/PCMM, their quality and safety control arouse increasing attention internationally. Researches on the accurate identification to ensure the safe use of T/PCMM are acquired; however, there are few reports on authentication. We are carrying out a series of studies on 31 T/PCMM originating from plants, animals, minerals, and secreta. In our previous studies, we proved that modern microscopic authentication is a simple, fast, effective, low cost, and less toxic method for identifying animal, seed, and flower T/PCMM. In the present study, we focused on the authentication of four kinds of mineral arsenicals, including orpiment (mainly containing As₂S₃), realgar (mainly containing As₄S₄), arsenolite, and arsenic trioxide (mainly containing As₂O₃). We examined the macroscopic and microscopic characteristics of the above minerals and found that they all can be easily identified and authenticated by using light microscopy coupled with polarized microscopy. Moreover, the authentication results for arsenolite and arsenic trioxide are confirmed by ICP-MS analysis. We are sure that the morphological and microscopic characteristics indicated here are indispensable to establishing standards for these four mineral T/PCMMs.

Authentication of Polygonati Odorati Rhizoma and other two Chinese Materia Medica of the Liliaceae family by pharmacognosy technique with GC–MS analysis

“…Microscopic studies were done by freehand cutting thin section of rhizome with platinum coated razor blade. The sections were cleared with 20% chloral hydrate solution and mounted in glycerin and observed under microscope OLYMPUS BX51 (Lin et al, ).…”

Effect of quality control on the proliferation of the extract from Taraxacum mongolicum Hand.‐Mazz. in Lactobacillus plantarum

“…Quality control has always been a difficulty both in research and in the production of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). It is also the essential foundation and key to modernizing TCM (Li et al, ; Wang et al, ; Yang et al, ). In recent years, the fingerprinting technique of high‐performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has been recognized as a reliable, simple and efficient method for the quality control of TCMs and their derivative products (Jing et al, ; Tao et al, ).…”

Morphological and microscopic characterization of five commonly-used testacean traditional Chinese medicines

“…Although some methods including X-ray diffraction, infrared and atomic absorption spectrometry have been applied to identification, expensive instruments are needed 10 , 11 , 12 . It is well known that microscopic techniques are fast, accurate, economical as well as simple, and have been used widely for the authentication of herbal, animal and even mineral medicines 13 , 14 , 15 . A few microscopic studies 1 , 16 on TTCMs have been reported, however, only cursory hand-drawing pictures on cross section were provided and none of them showed detailed color illustrations of the characteristics of powder.…”