AUTHOR=Jayasundar Rama , Ghatak Somenath , Kumar Dushyant , Singh Aruna , Bhosle Preeti 

TITLE=No ambiguity: Chemosensory-based ayurvedic classification of medicinal plants can be fingerprinted using E-tongue coupled with multivariate statistical analysis

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Pharmacology

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pharmacology/articles/10.3389/fphar.2022.1025591

DOI=10.3389/fphar.2022.1025591

ISSN=1663-9812

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Background:</bold> Ayurveda, the indigenous medical system of India, has chemosensory property (<italic>rasa</italic>) as one of its major pharmacological metric. Medicinal plants have been classified in Ayurveda under six <italic>rasas</italic>/tastes—sweet, sour, saline, pungent, bitter and astringent. This study has explored for the first time, the use of Electronic tongue for studies of <italic>rasa</italic>-based classification of medicinal plants.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> Seventy-eight medicinal plants, belonging to five taste categories (sweet, sour, pungent, bitter, astringent) were studied along with the reference taste standards (citric acid, hydrochloric acid, caffeine, quinine, L-alanine, glycine, β-glucose, sucrose, D-galactose, cellobiose, arabinose, maltose, mannose, lactose, xylose). The studies were carried out with the potentiometry-based Electronic tongue and the data was analysed using Principle Component Analysis, Discriminant Function Analysis, Taste Discrimination Analysis and Soft Independent Modeling of Class Analogy.</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> Chemosensory similarities were observed between taste standards and the plant samples–citric acid with sour group plants, sweet category plants with sucrose, glycine, β-glucose and D-galactose. The multivariate analyses could discriminate the sweet and sour, sweet and bitter, sweet and pungent, sour and pungent plant groups. Chemosensory category of plant (classified as unknown) could also be identified.</p><p><bold>Conclusion:</bold> This preliminary study has indicated the possibility of fingerprinting the chemosensory-based ayurvedic classification of medicinal plants using E-tongue coupled with multivariate statistical analysis.</p>