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Massa Medicata Fermentata (MMF) has been used for a long time by the Chinese. MMF is used widely in feed additives and human medicinal applications throughout the world; however, there have only been a few reports about the biostudy of its fermentation mechanism and medicinal ingredients. To safely use MMF, we observed the changes in the ingredients and amylase activity for several raw materials during the fermentation process of MMF. We are going to explore the basis of pharmacodynamic substances and the purpose of MMF to provide support for safe use in clinics. This biostudy data demonstrated that the ingredients such as amygdalin, benzaldehyde, and rutin were gradually degraded during the process of fermentation, and the fermented MMF did not contain amygdalin and benzaldehyde. The HPLC fingerprint of fermented MMF for 7 days is similar to the chemical composition of the original unfermented MMF with a similarity of only 0.106. Meanwhile, the activities of amylase in fermented MMF had gradually increased, and the content of organic acids also had increased. According to our biostudy, we found that the raw material chemical composition of MMF in the process of fermentation was affected by microorganisms and various substances. The conclusions of our study determined that the initial components of MMF are not identical to the pharmacodynamic components. We also conclude that amylase activity explains the pharmacological activity of MMF to a certain extent, but it is likely not the only factor. The implication not only provides the initial knowledge of MMF but also implies the further exploration of this popular traditional medicine.

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A cost-effective and environmentally friendly approach was developed to improve the extraction of active ingredients from plants, in which a bifunctional enzyme was employed for not only facilitating cell wall degradation but also increasing the bioactivity of target compounds in the extract. In the aqueous extraction of flavonoids from Glycyrrhizae radix, Trichoderma viride cellulase, a commercial cell-wall-degrading enzyme, was found to efficiently deglycosylate liquiritin and isoliquiritin, which are of high content but low bioactivity, into their aglycones that have much higher physiological activities for dietary and medicinal uses. Under optimized conditions, the extraction yield of liquiritigenin and isoliquiritigenin aglycones reached 4.23 and 0.39 mg/g of dry weight (dw) with 6.51- and 3.55-fold increases, respectively. The same approach was expanded to the extraction of flavonoids from Scutellariae radix using Penicillium decumbens naringinase, where enhanced production of more bioactive bacalein and wogonin was achieved via enzymatic deglycosylation of bacalin and wogonoside.