Determination of trace metal concentrations in ginseng (Panax Quinquefolius (American)) roots for forensic comparison using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass-Spectrometry

The trace metal content of roots of samples of the American ginseng natural herbal plant species (Panax quinquefolius) was investigated as a means of differentiating between this species grown on Wisconsin and New Zealand farms, and from Canadian and Chinese sources. ICP-MS measurements were undertaken by ashing samples of the roots and then digestion with conc. HNO3 and H2O2. There was considerable variation in the concentrations of 28 detectable elements along the length of a root, between different roots, between different farms/sources and between different countries. Statistical processing of the log-transformed concentration data was undertaken using principal component analysis (PCA) and discriminant function analysis (DFA). Although PCA showed some differentiation between samples, a much clearer discrimination of the Panax quinquefolius species of ginseng from the four countries was observed using DFA. 88% of the variation between countries could be accounted for by only using discriminant function 1 while 80% of the remaining 12% of the variation between countries is accounted for by discriminant function 2. The Fisher Classification Functions classify 98% of the 87 samples to the correct country of origin with 97% of the cross-validated cases correctly classified. The predictive ability of this DFA model was further tested by constructing 100 discriminant models each using a random selection of the data for two thirds of the 87 sampled ginseng root tops, and then using the resulting classification functions to determine correctly the country of origin of the remaining third of the cases. The mean success rate of the 100 classifications was 92%. These results suggest that measurement and statistical analysis of just the trace metal content of the roots of Panax quinquefolius promises to be an excellent predictor of the country of origin of this ginseng species.