Investigation Tracing the Origin of Tan Sheep Visceral Tissues through Mineral Elements.

The traceability of quality mineral fingerprints in the viscera of Tan sheep from northwest China was studied. Twenty-five mineral elements in the heart and liver samples of Tan sheep were determined using an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS), and the characteristics of the mineral elements in the visceral tissues of the Tan sheep were further analyzed in combination with a principal component analysis (PCA), hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) to establish a discriminant model and verify it. The results show that 11 elements ( 137 Ba, 43 Ca, 63 Cu, 56 Fe, 39 K, 31 P, 60 Ni, 78 Se, 118 Sn, 125 Te, and 66 Zn) in the Tan sheep heart samples had significant differences among different regions ( p < 0.05), and the results of the LDA show that the accuracy rate of the return-generation examination was 85.70%, and the accuracy rate of the hand-over-fork examination was 87.50%; 10 elements ( 111 Cd, 59 Co, 52 Cr, 56 Fe, 39 K, 55 Mn, 95 Mo, 23 Na, 121 Sb, and 78 Se) in the Tan sheep liver samples had significant differences among different regions ( p < 0.05), and the results of the LDA showed that the accuracy rate of the return-generation examination was 96.30%, and the accuracy rate of the hand-over-fork examination was 86.25%. This indicates that the multi-element analysis has potential for determining the origin of Tan sheep viscera in certain regions.