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Abstract

There are a lot of active components (amino acids, polysaccharides, saponins, alkaloids, flavonoids, organic acids and essential oils) and many trace elements in the leaves of A. sinensis. It has been reported that A. sinensis leaves were used as functional health tea. But till now, there is no report about the determination of the trance elements in the leaves of A. sinensis, we tested the trace elements in the leaves of A. sinensis using ICP-MS, to provide the valuable scientific evidence for the development of drinks.

Keywords

Aquilaria sinensis leaves, trace elements, determination

Aquilaria sinensis (Lour.) Gilg, a tropical and subtropical evergreen trees, belonging to the family Thymelaeaceae, is endemic and rare medicinal plants in China. A. sinensis can secrete a fragrant defensive black resin when suffering from an injury or infected by fungi. The black resin was named as Chinese eaglewood, which is specific medicine for stomach disease in clinic, and it possess a wide spectrum of biological activities, such as spasmolysis, antihypertensive, antibacterial, sadation, analgesia and so on [1]. The research of A. sinensis was mainly focused on the flowers. While the Chinese eaglewood is rare and precious because of its long period of formation. Therefore, injection fungi into the trunk has been carried out to promote the formation of the Chinese eaglewood. In order to comprehensively utilize this resource of A. sinensis, much attention has been focused on studying its leaves, especially the leaves after been injected fungi in the trunk of A. sinensis, and several healthy drinks have been developed: Wang Keyuan [2] mixed mature and tender leaves of A. sinensis with different ratios to prepare different teas for treatment of defecation, detoxification, sleep-promoting and reducing fat; Wang Keyuan [3] also prepared a kind of health product with mature and tender leaves of A. sinensis, Morinda officinalis How, Cistanche deserticola Ma and Panax quinquefolium in different forms (granule, capsule, tablet, etc.), which can be used for detoxification, nourishing the face, improving sleep, lowering blood sugar and lipid, tonifying kidney, enhancing immunity. Wang Jian et al. [4] prepared a kind of tea with Clerodendranthus spicatus, Aquilaria sinensis leaves and Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch, which possess the activities of heat-clearing, detoxicating, promoting liver, drenching, warming kidney. Based on the above results, in this work, we determined nineteen trance elements in three different leaves of A. sinensis (No.1 Natural growth leaves, No. 2 Leaves implanted with fungi, No 3. Non-implanted leaves, all leaves were collected from Taiwan, China) using ICP-MS, to provide scientific evidence for the development of drinks.

The experimental procedure listed below: the three kind different leaves were dried at 60^oC and powdered respectively. Each sample was weighed the given weight and diluted in 50 mL volumetric flask using the deionized water after nitrolysis. The trace elements in three different leaves were detected using ICP-MS. The nitrolysis processes see to figure 1 and the results listed in table 1, which provide the evidence for development of drinks with the leaves of Aquilaria sinensis.

Table 1. The content of the trace elements

Elements	Standard curve	R2	The content of the elements (ug/g)
			No.1	No.2	No.3
Al	Y=0.0128X+0.2013	0.9989	1.8579×102	5.9205×10	1.3195×102
Ti	Y=0.0203X+0.0063	0.9992	6.3573	4.2760	6.3467
V	Y=1.0952X+0.0440	0.9992	0.4403	0.5847	0.8295
Cr	Y=1.4904X+0.7925	0.9992	2.5941	2.2039	2.1078
Mn	Y=0.4714X+0.2261	0.9994	1.0507×102	4.1486×103	6.1820×103
Fe	Y=1.0349X+4.6486×10	0.9988	2.0340×102	3.2262×102	2.9124×102
Co	Y=3.0012X+0.1006	0.9989	0.1013	0.4766	0.8735
Ni	Y=0.8618X+7.3903	0.9988	0.5887	0.4761	1.0901
Cu	Y=2.3178X+4.1572×102	0.9945	1.6511×10	<0.000	<0.000
Zn	Y=0.2807X+1.6809	0.9986	1.7542×102	1.8528×102	2.2940×102
Ga	Y=0.2420X+1.0000	0.9995	0.0639	0.1128	0.1598
As	Y=0.2098X+0.0329	0.9975	0.4159	1.1240	0.4066
Se	Y=0.0045X+0.0050	0.9927	0.0820	0.4115	0.4023
Sr	Y=0.0120X+0.0023	0.9959	4.5023×101	3.7764×10	4.6574×10
Cd	Y=0.0111X+1.3526×10-4	0.9933	0.1952	1.5355	2.6309
Sb	Y=0.0854X+0.1005	0.9746	0.0433	0.0504	0.0137
Ba	Y=0.0250X+0.0264	0.9767	6.2973	2.1474×10	4.3463×10
Tl	Y=0.3310X+0.0025	0.9878	0.0060	0.01735	0.0143
Pb	Y=0.2715X+0.0721	0.9941	1.3505	1.2660	1.2630

No.1: Natural growth leaves, No. 2: Leaves implanted with fungi, No. 3: Non-implanted leaves

Figure 1. The processes of nitrolysis and detect the trace elements

According to scientific research, up to now, there are 18 kinds of essential trace elements related to human health and life. Such as: Fe, Cu, Zn, Co, Mn, Cr, Se, I, Ni, F, Mo, V, Sn, Si, Sr, B, Rb, As. We can know from table 1 that there are 11 kinds of essential trace elements related to human health and life in he leaves of A. sinensis, such as; V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Sr. Especially the contents of Mn, Fe, Zn and Sr are rich in the leaves of A. sinensis, and V, Cr, Co, Ni, As, Se are also with higher contents in the leaves of A. sinensis. It means that the leaves of A. sinensis contains abundant essential trace elements related to human health and life, which can be developed the drinks and health products.

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21875252) and the Project of The Plan of Xiamen Science and Technology (3502ZCQ20171002).

References

1. Chinese Pharmacopoeia Commission (2015) Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China. Beijing: Science Press, 243.
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