Electrochemistry-based chemotaxonomy in plants using the voltammetry of microparticles methodology

Abstract

A methodology for characterizing vegetal taxonomic groups using microextraction-assisted voltammetry of microparticles is described. It is based on recording the voltammetric response of microparticulate films of polyphenolic compounds of leaf extracts using different organic solvents. As a result, characteristic voltammetric profiles, tentatively defining an electrochemolomic response, are obtained. Bivariant and multivariant chemometric evaluation of the voltammetric responses of such films allows characterizing vegetal families. Analysis of voltammetric responses for a set of species of the Rosales order suggests that electrochemical data can be correlated with phylogenetic trees.

Voltammetric analysis of Pinus needles with physiological, phylogenetic, and forensic applications

“…Figure 12 shows the dendrogram of the species studied here obtained from the hierarchical cluster analysis based on the (I(E)/I max ) data (taken at 100 mV interval) from voltammograms of microparticulate deposits from ethanol extracts of needles of Pinus in this study. The obtained dendrogram agrees with the phylogenetic tree which can be constructed for the studied species from the aforementioned molecular genetics [20,52], thus confirming the possibility of correlating electrochemical data to phylogenetic analysis [22]. In particular, consistently with phylogenetic schemes, the three species of the subgenus Strobus, section Quinquefoliae, subsection Strobus, namely P. armandii, P. sibirica, and P. pumila, presented a voltammetric similarity larger than that existing for P. halepensis and P. sylvestris, both of the subgenus Pinus, section Pinus, but assigned to different subsections (Pinus and Pinaster, respectively).…”

“…In order to establish similarity correlations from voltammetric data, normalized voltammograms were constructed as representations of the ratio between the current at a given potential, I(E), and the maximum peak current, I max , vs. the applied potential E, as described in literature [22,33,34,50]. Figure 12 shows the dendrogram of the species studied here obtained from the hierarchical cluster analysis based on the (I(E)/I max ) data (taken at 100 mV interval) from voltammograms of microparticulate deposits from ethanol extracts of needles of Pinus in this study.…”

“…In this context, we studied previously the possibility of applying solid-state electrochemical techniques for acquiring information of taxonomic value [22]. This approach was based on the voltammetry of immobilized particles (VIMP), a methodology which provides the electrochemical response of sparingly soluble solids attached to inert electrodes in contact with suitable electrolytes [23][24][25].…”

Identification of vegetal species in wooden objects using in situ microextraction-assisted voltammetry of microparticles

“…54,55 The same set of electrochemical data can be used for identification purposes upon determining the degree of matching between the voltammogram of the samples and the reference woods. Using the normalized voltammograms previously described (where 0  I(E)  1), the degree of matching between two series of voltammograms for two specimens A and B can be approached by a f-coefficient defined as:…”

“…53 Following prior studies for leaf extracts of plants, 54,55 taking current values at n potentials, normalized current data provide a matrix of (1  n) dimensions which can be converted into a matrix of (m  n) dimensions combining the data for extracts in m different solvents and/or electrolytes.…”