TABLE 3.
Strengths and limitations of analytical techniques for Marantodes pumilum authentication.
| Techniques | Strengths | Limitations | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organoleptic, macroscopy and microscopy | • Quick physical evaluation for adulteration, contamination, and substitution (Upton et al., 2020) | • Conventional method, imprecise and inconsistent result (Smillie & Khan, 2010) • Requires expertise and skilled or well-trained personnel (Smillie & Khan, 2010) • Microscopy is not applicable for materials in extracted or prepared (e.g., resins) form (Upton et al., 2020) | |
| Chemical fingerprinting | IR/NIR Spectroscopy | • Quick, non-destructive, and high throughput method with minimal sample preparation (Upton et al., 2020) | • Affected by variables such as moisture, particle size and homogeneity of test samples (Upton et al., 2020) |
| • Able to generate chemical fingerprint to differentiate plant varieties and plant parts (Aladdin et al., 2016) | |||
| TLC | • Manual, rapid, simple, flexible, low-cost, and minimal sample preparation (Liang et al., 2004) | • Issues with reproducibility, resolutions, sensitivity and difficulty to detect trace phytochemical components (Yongyu et al., 2011) | |
| • Test sample and References standard can be analysed simultaneously (Liang et al., 2004) | |||
| HPTLC | • Automated sample application allows for improved separation, band resolution and reproducibility of results (Aladdin et al., 2016) | ||
| • High throughput and screen multiple samples in a single assay (Upton et al., 2020) | |||
| HPLC | • High selectivity, sensitivity, resolution, and fully automatable operation (Smillie and Khan, 2010) | • Unable to distinguish between closely related species or non-target species that have similar chemical profiles (Upton et al., 2020) | |
| • Enable qualitative and quantitative analysis (Upton et al., 2020) | • Affected by factors related to variation in climate, phenotype, storage condition, age, and cultivation time (Mohammed et al., 2017) | ||
| MS hyphenated techniques | • Powerful for rapid identification of phytochemical constituents in plant extracts (Liang et al., 2004) | • High cost | |
| • High resolution, high speed, accurate mass-measurement and able to retrieve more information in a complex botanical drug substance (Yongyu et al., 2011) | |||
| Biological fingerprinting | DNA Barcode | • Rapid, sensitive, and effective tool for identification of species (Tarmizi et al., 2021) | • Unable to identify extracted form or processed botanical drugs (Tarmizi et al., 2021) |
| • Widely used to differentiate individual plant, genus, homogeneity analysis, and detection of adulterants (Upton et al., 2020) | • Highly dependent on the availability of References standard data sequences (Tarmizi et al., 2021) | ||
| • Less affected by plant age, physiological conditions, environmental factors, harvest, storage, and processing methods (Yongyu et al., 2011) | • Unable to provide information related to concentration of compounds with therapeutic value (Yongyu et al., 2011) | ||
| • Genome information only as a complement tool of other quality control techniques (Yongyu et al., 2011) | |||