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 (¹³⁷Ba, ⁴³Ca, ⁶³Cu, ⁵⁶Fe, ³⁹K, ³¹P, ⁶⁰Ni, ⁷⁸Se, ¹¹⁸Sn, ¹²⁵Te, and ⁶⁶Zn) 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 (¹¹¹Cd, ⁵⁹Co, ⁵²Cr, ⁵⁶Fe, ³⁹K, ⁵⁵Mn, ⁹⁵Mo, ²³Na, ¹²¹Sb, and ⁷⁸Se) 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.