Abstract
Kasseki' in Japanese or 'Huashi' in Chinese are highly similar crude mineral drugs. Though almost the same Chinese characters are used for both, the definition of the former in The Japanese Pharmacopoeia (JP) is different from that of the latter in Pharmacopoeia of The People's Republic of China (CP). Namely, Kasseki is defined as "a mineral substance, mainly composed of aluminum silicate hydrate and silicon dioxide" in JP, while Huashi is defined as "mainly hydrated magnesium silicate" in CP. Since the Kasseki used in Japan is imported from China, discrimination of these two is important from the viewpoint of regulatory science. In this report we applied a taste-sensing system having artificial lipid membrane sensors to discriminate between Kasseki and Huashi.
First, seven types of sensors were tested on serial concentrations of water extracts of Kasseki and Huashi. The results suggested that the AC0 and AAE sensors were appropriate for our purpose when 1% (w/w) water extracts of samples were used. Next, we tested ten each of Kasseki and Huashi samples in this condition. For the Kasseki samples, both sensors showed specifically localized output values ranging from 0 to -5 mV. By contrast, for the Huashi samples, AC0 characteristically showed output values deviating from the range within ± 5 mV and AAE showed a wide range of output values, from -22 to 1 mV. These data suggest that the taste-sensing system can discriminate Kasseki from Huashi when their 1% (w/w) water extracts are measured by AC0 and AAE sensors.
