Evaluation chemometric and metal analysis of 200 medicinal and aromatic plant species growing in the eastern region of our country by spectroscopic methods

The importance of plants in folk medicine and scientific studies is increasing day by day. In this context, It constitutes a danger to human health, especially the toxic metals in their structure, especially when they are eaten by the public, consumed as herbal tea or used as medicinal plants. For this reason, determining the macro, micro and toxic element content in plants is important for health. In this study, the macro, micro, and toxic metal contents of the aboveground (A.G.) and underground (U.G.) parts of approximately 200 different plant species from 6 different plant families in the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions were determined. Statistical analysis of metal analysis results obtained by ICP-MS of Salvia genus species belonging to the Lamiaceae family was performed by chemometric studies. In addition, Na, K, Fe, Cu, Cr, Mn, Ni, Zn, Cd and Pb metal contents in artificial body liquid medium of 27 different species samples of Salvia genus belonging to Lamiaceae family prepared as herbal tea were determined. It was determined from where the metals in the structures of 27 different species were absorbed in artificial body liquid medium (artificial saliva, artificial gastric, and artificial intestinal). 20 metal (Na, K, Mg, Fe, Al, B, Ti, Mo, Li, Cu, Be, Cr, Mn, Ni, Co, Zn, Se, Cd, Ba, Pb) content analysis of species belonging to 6 different plant families (Anacardiaceae, Apiaceae, Asteraceae, Fabaceae, Lamiaceae and Liliaceae) was done. The obtained results were compared with World Health Organization (WHO) and Turkish Food Codex (TFC) values. It was determined that Cr, Cd, and Pb metal contents of all species belonging to the Salvia genus remained mostly in artificial saliva liquid medium. Also, it was determined that the Cu metal content of 24 of 27 Salvia species and Zn metal content of 22 of them largely remained in the artificial saliva liquid medium. It was determined metal content Mn in 14 of them and Ni in 18 of the 27 Salvia genus species mostly in the artificial gastric liquid medium. It was determined that Na and K metal contents of all species belonging to the Salvia genus remained mostly in the artificial intestinal liquid medium. Analysis of 20 elements (Na, K, Mg, Fe, Al, B, Ti, Mo, Li, Cu, Be, Cr, Mn, Ni, Co, Zn, Se, Cd, Ba, Pb) in samples of belonging to 27 different Salvia species has been made. Chemometric analysis techniques such as principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) were applied to the obtained data. 27 different Salvia species were divided into 3 parts and in the first part, based on the results of the principal component analysis that made with 20 variables of the samples belonging to 8 different Salvia species, it was determined that the variance of the first two main components was 41.20% and 17.90%, respectively. In addition, according to the PCA and HCA results, it was observed that three groups were formed and these groups were similar to each other. In the second part, the variance of the first two main components was determined to be 43.60% and 12.60%, respectively, based on the results of the PCA that made with 20 variables of the U.G. and A.G. samples of 10 different Salvia species. In addition, it is seen that occurred four groups according to the PCA result and three groups according to the HCA. In the third part, based on the results of PCA that made with 20 variables of the U.G. and A.G. samples of 9 different Salvia species, it was determined that the variance of the first two main components was 49.30% and 13.30%, respectively. Key Words: Lamiaceae, Salvia, macro and micro elements, artificial body liquid medium, chemometry, AAS, ICP-MS