Plastron is a nutritive and superior functional food. Due to its limited supply yet enormous demands, some functional foods supposed to contain plastron may be forged with other substitutes. This paper reports a novel and simple method for determination of the authenticity of plastron-derived functional foods based on comparison of the amino acid (AA) profiles of plastron and its possible substitutes. By applying micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC), 18 common AAs along with another 2 special AAs — hydroxyproline (Hyp) and hydroxylysine (Hyl) were detected in all plastron samples. Since chicken, egg, fish, milk, pork, nail and hair lacked of Hyp and Hyl, plastron could be easily distinguished. For those containing collagen, a statistical analysis technique — principal component analysis (PCA) was adopted and plastron was successfully distinguished. When applied the proposed method to authenticate turtle shell glue in the market, fake products were commonly found.

Plastron是一种营养丰富且功能强大的食品。由于其供应有限而需求巨大，某些可能包含的功能性食品可能会与其他替代品一起伪造。本文基于对胶及其可能替代品的氨基酸（AA）谱的比较，报告了一种新颖且简单的方法来确定胶衍生功能食品的真实性。通过胶束电动色谱法（MEKC），在所有plastron样品中检测到18种常见AA以及另外2种特殊AA-羟脯氨酸（Hyp）和羟赖氨酸（Hyl）。由于鸡肉，鸡蛋，鱼，牛奶，猪肉，指甲和头发缺少Hyp和Hyl，因此可以轻松区分。对于那些含有胶原蛋白的人，一种统计分析技术-采用了主成分分析（PCA），并成功区分了plastron。在市场上应用所提出的方法对龟甲胶进行认证时，通常会发现假冒产品。