Cannabinoids and Terpenes as Chemotaxonomic markers in Cannabis

By Sytze Elzinga, J. Fischedick, Richard Podkolinski, Jeffrey C Raber. Prime Archives in Chemistry, 2015

108 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In this paper, we present principal component analysis (PCA) results from a dataset containing 494 cannabis flower samples and 170 concentrate samples analyzed for 31 compounds. A continuum of chemical composition amongst cannabis strains was found instead of distinct chemotypes. Our data shows that some strains are much more reproducible in chemical composition than others. Strains labeled as indica were compared with those labeled as sativa and no evidence was found that these two cultivars are distinctly different chemotypes. PCA of “OG” and “Kush” type strains found that “OG” strains have relatively higher levels of α-terpineol, fenchol, limonene, camphene, terpinolene and linalool where “Kush” samples are characterized mainly by the compounds trans-ocimene, guaiol, β-eudesmol, myrcene and α-pinene. The composition of concentrates and flowers were compared as well. Although the absolute concentration of compounds in concentrates is much higher, the relative composition of compounds between flowers and concentrates is similar.

Subfields: Nutrition and Dietetics, Pharmacology, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c1befb451cbb6c7d0542e897d4944be46a18fb8a