Gold nanoparticle-enhanced luminol/ferricyanide chemiluminescence system for aristolochic acid-i detection in medicinal plants and slimming products

Abstract

Aristolochic acid-I (AA-I) is commonly present as a natural product in medicinal plants such as Asarum and Radix aristolochiae. The misuse of some slimming products and dietary, supplements containing AA-I as a regulator has been reported to cause cancer, acute hepatitis and renal failure. Hence, quality control and quantification of AA-I in these products at a trace level are significantly necessary. In this approach, a simple and accurate sequential injection analysis (SIA) chemiluminescence (CL) detection method was employed for AA-I determination. Gold nanoparticles were used to enhance the CL signal of luminol-ferricyanide-AA-I reaction. The results showed that the proposed method displayed linear relationship of 10–20,000 ng mL−1, (r = 0.9992) with 10 and 3 ng mL−1 as the minimum quantification and detection limits, respectively. The possible interferences such as some common metals, additives and related pharmacological action compounds were tested. The recorded SIA-CL results were statistically assessed and compared to those obtained from other published methods.(Image Presented).