Traditionally, Vaccinium spp. plant material has been used by indigenous cultures of the Circumboreal Region for treating a variety of disease conditions.1 Evaluation of the constituents in extracts from various species show variation in the quantities of the bioactive compounds.2 The variation between species and the high hybridization of Vaccinium spp. accentuates the need for quality control of extracts to support safety and expected bioactivity of samples from these plants. In our earlier work,3,4 it was established that NMR provided a robust and reproducible technique for quality evaluation of Vaccinium spp. L. (Blueberries, Cranberries, and Bilberries) of the Ericaeae family. With a NMR fingerprint approach quality of material was established using a simultaneous targeted and non-targeted analysis approach for quantification of key metabolites and classification against species dependent models. Here, rather than use a traditional SIMCA outlier detection model for identification of the plant material and quantification of specific components, we explore the use of various similarity algorithms for material assessment. Correlation coefficients for similarity of the entire spectra, spectral contrast, and barcode match are assessed on various species of NMR spectra from a worldwide Vaccinium spp. collection5 that includes V. angustifolium, V. boreale, V. corymbosum, V. macrocarpon, V. myrtilloides, V. myrtillus, V. ovalifolium, and V. uliginosum. Similarity comparisons preclude the need for the collection of a large number of samples for model development.
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- M. A. Markus et al., Planta Med 2014 ; 80 :732-739
- Samples kindly supplied by J. T. Arnason, U. Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada