Botanical Integrity: The Importance of the Integration of Chemical, Biological, and Botanical Analyses, and the Role of DNA Barcoding

Abstract

Raw materials, ingredients, and products derived from plants are commonly referred to as herbs or botanicals in both the biomedical literature and the natural products health industry. This overarching term includes the breadth of crude herbs, plant parts, and the ingredients made from them, and also covers finished products such as botanical dietary supplements. Botanical dietary supplements are intended to supplement the human diet and are composed primarily of powdered plant parts, their extracts, or other preparations derived from crude herbal material; some formulations include other ingredients such as vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. Botanical dietary supplements are highly complex mixtures reflecting the diverse chemical constituents that comprise the source plant's raw material. Botanical analysis is an intricate analytical challenge requiring specialized skills and instrumentation that is different from those required for quality control of chemically simpler pharmaceuticals, or for the safety assessment of many conventional food or other products that are generally regarded as safe (GRAS).

Figure 1. Botanical Integrity Requires Integration: Chemistry x Botany x Bioactivity = Integrity

The three main components of the Botanical Integrity (BI) model used for research in the UIC/NIH Botanical Center are: botanical examination (botany), phytochemical analysis (chemistry), and biological and safety assessment (bioactivity). The concerted use of multiple methodologies from all three components is required to obtain a comprehensive representation of a botanical material.