Untargeted Metabolomics and Targeted Quantitative Analysis of Temporal and Spatial Variations in Specialized Metabolites Accumulation in Poria cocos (Schw.) Wolf (Fushen)

Abstract

Poria cocos (Schw.) Wolf is a saprophytic fungus that grows around the roots of old, dead pine trees. Fushen, derived from the sclerotium of P. cocos but also containing a young host pine root, has been widely used as a medicine and food in China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asian countries, and some European countries. However, the compound variations at the different growth periods and in the different parts of Fushen have not previously been investigated. In this study, an untargeted metabolomics approach based on ultra-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q/TOF-MS) and targeted quantitative analysis was utilized to characterize the temporal and spatial variations in the accumulation of specialized metabolites in Fushen. There were 119 specialized metabolites tentatively identified using the UPLC-Q/TOF-MS. The nine growth periods of Fushen were divided into four groups using partial least squares discrimination analysis (PLS-DA). Four different parts of the Fushen [fulingpi (FP), the outside of baifuling (BO), the inside of baifuling (BI), and fushenmu (FM)] were clearly discriminated using a PLS-DA and orthogonal partial least squares discrimination analysis (OPLS-DA). Markers for the different growth periods and parts of Fushen were also screened. In addition, the quantitative method was successfully applied to simultaneously determine 13 major triterpenoid acids in the nine growth periods and four parts. The quantitative results indicated that the samples in January, March, and April, i.e., the late growth period, had the highest content levels for the 13 triterpenoid acids. The pachymic acid, dehydropachymic acid, and dehydrotumulosic acid contents in the FM were higher than those in other three parts in March, whereas the poricoic acid B, poricoic acid A, polyporenic acid C, dehydrotratrametenolic acid, dehydroeburicoic acid, and eburicoic acid in FP were higher beginning in October. These findings reveal characteristics in temporal and spatial distribution of specialized metabolites in Fushen and provide guidance for the identification of harvesting times and for further quality evaluations.

An Evaluation of Traits, Nutritional, and Medicinal Component Quality of Polygonatum cyrtonema Hua and P. sibiricum Red.

“…A heat map can directly show intragroup and intergroup similarities and differences, and cluster analysis is a clustering tool to evaluate the difference through an algorithm to produce a dendrogram ( Yang et al, 2021 ). Thus, heatmap cluster analysis with complete linkage after column scaling with normalization was used in this study to evaluate the similarities and differences of different types of Huangjing .…”

Effects of Poria cocos extract on metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease via the FXR/PPARα-SREBPs pathway

“…Pharmacological studies showed that porcine acid B has a strong anti-inflammatory effect ( Zhang et al, 2021 ). Polyporenic acid C potentiates insulin and induces differentiation of ST-13 preadipocytes ( Yang et al, 2021 ). Based on the above findings, we chose poricoic acid B and polyporenic acid C to determine whether triterpenic acid could alleviate the damage to L-02 hepatocytes in a 5% fatty emulsion.…”

The Application of UHPLC-HRMS for Quality Control of Traditional Chinese Medicine

“…Wolf has been widely used as a medicine and food in China. An approach based on UHPLC-Q/TOF-MS was utilized to characterize the temporal and spatial variations in the accumulation of specialized metabolites in Fushen, and the quantitative method was successfully applied to simultaneously determine 13 major triterpenoid acids in the nine growth periods and four parts ( Yang M. et al, 2021 ).…”