Metabolic Fingerprinting by 1HNMR for Discrimination of the Two Species Used as Radix Bupleuri

Abstract

Radix Bupleuri is a traditional Chinese medicine harvested from two Bupleurum species (B. chinense and B. scorzonerifolium). It is widely used and is sourced from different regions of China. 1H NMR spectroscopy and multivariate data analysis were applied to 67 Radix Bupleuri samples to discriminate the two species, and explore the influences of habitat and culture method on the quality of Radix Bupleuri based on their metabolomics profiles. Metabolites responsible for the differences between the two species were higher levels of arginine, citric acid, sucrose, saikosaponin b1/b2 analogs, volatile oil with an (E)-2-olefin aldehyde fragment, and fatty acids in B. scoreonerifolium, and more saikosaponin a/c/d analogs in B. chinense. The variances of two cultivation areas were observed due to the higher amount of saikosaponins a/c/d in samples from Shaanxi and lipidsin samples from Shanxi. No obvious difference was detected between cultivars and wild type. 1HNMR metabolomics can simultaneously detect saikosaponins and hydrocarbon aldehydes, and also differentiate the two main saikosaponin skeletons, making it a suitable tool for the species discrimination and quality evaluation of Radix Bupleuri.

Improving the Concentrations of the Active Components in the Herbal Tea Ingredient, Uraria crinita: The Effect of Post-harvest Oven-drying Processing

“…Large variations in the concentrations of the bioactive compounds present in herbal teas have been demonstrated in many reports and this has created great concern in terms of its effect on the quality and bioactivity of herbal tea or functional foods12. This variation has been attributed to a variety of different agricultural factors, including the environment, climate, collection time and growing year12.…”

“…This variation has been attributed to a variety of different agricultural factors, including the environment, climate, collection time and growing year12. However, in general, the chemical variations associated with the post-harvest drying methods have been overlooked in these studies.…”

“…First, the variations in the chemical components may include both primary metabolites and secondary metabolites, namely the active compounds. However, most reports fail to consider the whole picture of all metabolites and the potential biotransformation between different metabolites1213. Metabolomics is a systematic approach that qualifies and quantifies as many of the metabolites that are present in an organism as possible.…”

Metabolic characterization of natural and cultured Ophicordyceps sinensis from different origins by 1H NMR spectroscopy

“…NMR has several advantages over other methods (LC/MS, GC/MS), including simple sample preparation, high reproducibility, non-selective, non-destructive and the capacity to elucidate structures [14]. Non-targeted metabolomic profiling based on 1 H NMR spectroscopy has been successfully applied to discriminate species or different origins of Curcuma [15], Radix Bupleuri [16], Danggui [17], and quality control of Polygonum [18], Pueraria [19], Angelica acutiloba roots [20] and Magnoliae officinalis cortex [21].…”

Effect of saikosaponins and extracts of vinegar-baked Bupleuri Radix on the activity ofβ-glucuronidase

“…To investigate this point, different kinds of VBRB extracts were prepared and characterized in this paper and their effect on b-glucuronidase activity was studied for the first time. Since VBRB is a mixture of bioactive oleanane saponins, including saikosaponins a (SS a ), b (SS b1 ,SS b2 ), c (SS c ), and d (SS d ), whereas the SS b1 and SS b2 are derivatives of SS a and SS d , respectively (Bao et al, 2004;Kwon et al, 2011;Lee et al, 2011;Qin et al, 2012), a series of saikosaponins were selected as controls in this study. Their structures are presented in Figure 1.…”