Authentic determination of bird's nests by saccharides profile

A simple high performance ion liquid chromatography with pulsed amperometric detector (HPAE-PAD) was applied to the saccharide profile analysis for the authenticity identification of edible bird's nests. The glycoproteins in authentic edible bird's nests, as reference materials for this study, contain fucose (Fuc) 0.44%, rhamnose (Rha) 0.20%, galactosamine (GalN) 4.19%, glucosamine (GlcN) 5.29%, galactose (Gal) 5.03%, mannose (Man) 0.75% and N-acetylneuraminic acid (NeuAc) 10.8% +/- 0.76. The NeuAc content was used as an index to estimate the content of authentic bird's nest contained in dried powder. The dried powder was prepared by using bird's nests obtained from retail stores, or from the gel substance of bottled products of bird's nest steeped in rock sugar solution (BNsrss). The quality of dried bird's nest was also judged by the NeuAc/GalN ratio. The NeuAc/GalN ratios in commercial products claimed as edible dried bird's nest ranged from 2.3 to 3.0, while those in dried powders from gel substance claimed as BNsrss ranged from 0.03 to 3.0.