Multi-elemental profiling and chemo-metric validation revealed nutritional qualities of Zingiber officinale.

Ginger rhizome is a valued food, spice and an important ingredient of traditional systems of medicine of India, China and Japan. An Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) based multi-elemental profiling was performed to assess the quantitative complement of elements, nutritional quality and toxicity of 46 ginger germplasms, collected from the north western Himalayan India. The abundance of eighteen elements quantified in the acid digested rhizomes was observed to be K>Mg>Fe>Ca>Na>Mn>Zn>Ba>Cu>Cr>Ni>Pb>Co>Se>As>Be>Cd. Toxic element, Hg was not detected in any of the investigated samples. Chemometric analyses showed positive correlation among most of the elements. No negative correlation was observed in any of the metals under investigation. UPGMA based clustering analysis of the quantitative data grouped all the 46 samples into three major clusters, displaying 88% similarity in their metal composition, while eighteen metals investigated grouped into two major clusters. Quantitatively, all the elements analyzed were below the permissible limits laid down by World Health Organization. The results were further validated by cluster analysis (CA) and principal component analysis (PCA) to understand the ionome of the ginger rhizome. The study suggested raw ginger to be a good source of beneficial elements/minerals like Mg, Ca, Mn, Fe, Cu and Zn and will provide platform for understanding the functional and physiological status of ginger rhizome.

Composition of a monoterpenoid-rich essential oil from the rhizome of Zingiber officinale from north western Himalayas.

The chemical composition of the essential oil from the rhizome of ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe), collected from Nahan, Himachal Pradesh, India, was determined by gas chromatography and GC-MS. Fifty-one compounds, representing 95.1% of the oil, were identified. The oil was characterized by relatively large amounts of the monoterpenoids 1,8-cineole (10.9%), linalool (4.8%), borneol (5.6%), alpha-terpineol (3.6%), neral (8.1%), geraniol (14.5%), geranial (9.5%), trans-dimethoxy citral (5.0%) and geranyl acetate (6.3%). Five compounds, namely trans-linalool oxide, trans-linalool oxide acetate, (Z)-dimethoxycitral, (E)-dimethoxy citral and epi-zingiberenol are reported for the first time in oil of ginger.

RP-thin layer chromatographic method for the quantification of three gingerol homologs of ultrasonic-assisted fresh rhizome extracts of Zingiber officinale collected from North Western Himalayas.

A rapid and sensitive RP high-performance thin-layer chromatographic (RP-HPTLC) methodology was developed and validated for the quantitative estimation of gingerols in methanolic extract of fresh ginger rhizome. The samples were chromatographed on RP-TLC glass plates pre-coated with RP-18 60F(254) as the stationary phase. Linear ascending development was carried out in twin trough glass chamber saturated with ternary-solvent system consisting of acetonitrile-water-formic acid (7:2:1 v/v/v) at room temperature (25+/-2 degrees C) and plates were scanned at 500 nm. The system was found to give compact spots for gingerols (R(f) values of 6-gingerol 0.73+/-0.04, 8-gingerol 0.59+/-0.08 and 10-gingerol 0.36+/-0.05). Linearity was found to be in the range of 140-840 ng/spot for 6-gingerol, 168-1008 ng/spot for 8-gingerol and 136-816 ng/spot for 10-gingerol with significantly high value of correlation coefficient. The linear regression analysis data for the calibration plots showed linear relationship (r(2)) and ranged from 0.9992 to 0.9937 for 6-, 8- and 10-gingerol. The method was used for routine analyses and to obtain relative amounts of the gingerols in the fresh rhizomes of the ginger cultivated in different locations of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh of North Western Himalayas (India).