Metabolomic analysis of raw Pinelliae Rhizoma and its alum‐processed products via UPLC–MS and their cytotoxicity

Abstract

Alum-processing is a traditional method to attenuate the toxicity of Pinelliae Rhizoma (tubers of Pinellia ternate, PT). The present study aimed at investigating the chemical and cytotoxic changes during alum processing. Metabolomic profiles of raw and alum-processed PT were studied based on ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with Orbitrap mass spectrometry. More than 80 chemicals in positive MS mode and 40 chemicals in negative MS mode, such as organic acids, amino acids, glucosides and nucleosides, were identified after multivariate statistical analysis, including principal component analysis and orthogonal partial least-square discriminant analysis. Almost all of the identified chemical markers were significantly decreased 10-to 100-fold after alum processing. Meanwhile, the correlations between the chemical markers were assimilated to a positive coefficient from disorderly distribution during the processing. Raw PT extracts could inhibit the proliferation of human carcinoma cells (HCT-116, HepG2, and A549) at the rate of 40.5, 24.8 and 31.6% more strongly than processed PT. It was concluded that the alum processing of PT could decrease the number of actively water-soluble principles at the same time as decreasing toxicity. Given the water-insoluble property of toxic calcium oxalate raphides in PT, we suggest that a more scientific processing method should be sought.

Metabolic Profiling of Water-Soluble Compounds from the Extracts of Dark Septate Endophytic Fungi (DSE) Isolated from Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) Seedlings Using UPLC–Orbitrap–MS

“…Furthermore, 29 tripeptides and other oligopeptides were tentatively identified in our samples (Table 2) together with 14 amino acid derivatives. Small peptides and amino acids have also been identified from the tubers of Pinellia ternate roots [26] and some of the findings confirm the retention order of the compounds identified by databases and literature in our study. For some compounds, additional ions were detected.…”

“…NAD produced a fragment ion at m/z 540.1 in the negative ESI mode corresponding to the cleavage of nicotinamide. The retention order of the above mentioned metabolites was similar to that found in the literature [25,26,36,37,38,39,40,48,51,52,53,55,63,64,85]. Shiao et al [35] detected nucleosides and nucleobases from the pathogenic fungus Cordyceps sinensis and their retention order is same as ours.…”

“…Pentonic and hexonic acids in Table 2 were identified by their exact masses and molecular formulae according to Sun et al [26], where they had further identified the species being ribonic and gulonic acids using MS/MS data. Glycerophosphoinositol is closely related to glycerophosphorylcholine.…”

Effect of mineral excipients on processing traditional Chinese medicines: an insight into the components, pharmacodynamics and mechanism

“…Detoxification is also one of the main purposes of Banxia processing, calcium oxalate needle crystal with special crystalline and lectin protein are main toxic components in it. After being processed with alumen, the toxic needle crystal dissolved and corroded, and the agglutinin protein degraded and denatured, so the toxicity is reduced [ 10 , 14 , 17 – 23 ]. However, the lectin protein is also an effective component of Banxia with anti-tumor effect [ 14 ].…”

“…After being processed with alumen, the toxic needle crystal dissolved and corroded, and the agglutinin protein degraded and denatured, so the toxicity is reduced [ 10 , 14 , 17 – 23 ]. However, the lectin protein is also an effective component of Banxia with anti-tumor effect [ 14 ]. Thus, explore how to moderately processing Banxia with alumen has important implications.…”