Variations in Physiology and Multiple Bioactive Constituents under Salt Stress Provide Insight into the Quality Evaluation of Apocyni Veneti Folium

Abstract

As one of the major abiotic stresses, salinity stress may affect the physiology and biochemical components of Apocynum venetum L. To systematically evaluate the quality of Apocyni Veneti Folium (AVF) from the perspective of physiological and the wide variety of bioactive components response to various concentrations of salt stress, this experiment was arranged on the basis of ultra-fast liquid chromatography tandem triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UFLC-QTRAP-MS/MS) technology and multivariate statistical analysis. Physiological characteristics of photosynthetic pigments, osmotic homeostasis, lipid peroxidation product, and antioxidative enzymes were introduced to investigate the salt tolerance mechanism of AVF under salinity treatments of four concentrations (0, 100, 200, and 300 mM NaCl, respectively). Furthermore, a total of 43 bioactive constituents, including 14 amino acids, nine nucleosides, six organic acids, and 14 flavonoids were quantified in AVF under salt stress. In addition, multivariate statistical analysis, including hierarchical clustering analysis, principal component analysis (PCA), and gray relational analysis (GRA) was employed to systematically cluster, distinguish, and evaluate the samples, respectively. Compared with the control, the results demonstrated that 200 mM and 100 mM salt stress contributed to maintain high quality of photosynthesis, osmotic balance, antioxidant enzyme activity, and the accumulation of metabolites, except for total organic acids, and the quality of AVF obtained by these two groups was better than others; however, under severe stress, the accumulation of the oxidative damage and the reduction of metabolite caused by inefficiently scavenging reactive oxygen species (ROS) lead to lower quality. In summary, the proposed method may provide integrated information for the quality evaluation of AVF and other salt-tolerant Chinese medicines.

Dynamic Variations in Multiple Bioactive Constituents under Salt Stress Provide Insight into Quality Formation of Licorice

“…Both control (0 mM NaCl) and severe stress (200 mM NaCl) groups of seedlings showed weaker development than the other two stressed groups (Figure S1), suggesting licorice may live more vigorously under suitable salt conditions. Apart from growth inhibition, salinity stress also causes ion toxicity at the cellular level [19,20]. In order to survive harsh circumstances, plants have developed an efficient defensive strategy to scavenge ROS by producing a series of enzymes such as CAT, SOD, POD, etc.…”

“…SOD activity was measured according to the hydroxylamine method, POD activity was determined by the colorimetric method, and GR activity was determined by the method of Schaedle and Bassham. CAT activity was assayed in light with the ammonium molybdate method [19,33]. All of the experiments were carried out by assay kits obtained from Nanjing Jiancheng Bioengineering Institute (Nanjing, China), and 200 µL of each reaction solution was detected under UV-visible absorptions by a multi-mode microplate reader (SpectraMax M5, San Jose, CA, USA).…”

Salinity Tolerance in Plants: Trends and Perspectives

“…The addition of PTIO (a NO-scavenger) impaired the coupled response of melatonin and SNP, suggesting that NO is required to potentiate the effects of melatonin in protecting plants from salt stress [18]. Chen et al (2018) [19] studied the salt-stress response of Apocynum venetum L plants, used in traditional Chinese medicine. The authors studied the changes in photosynthetic pigments, osmolytes, lipid peroxidation, some antioxidant enzymes, and ascorbic acid.…”

“…By using UFLC-QTRAP-MS/MS technology a total of 43 bioactive constituents, including amino acids, nucleosides, organic acids, and flavonoids were successfully identified to change in response to salt stress. They applied a multivariate statistical analysis to evaluate the quality of Apocynum venetum L plants grown under saline conditions [19].…”

A strategy for quality evaluation of salt-treated Apocyni Veneti Folium and discovery of efficacy-associated markers by fingerprint-activity relationship modeling

“…Salinity has adverse effects on all aspects of plant health by activating salinity-induced molecular networks associated with salt stress perception, ion and osmotic homeostasis, and regulation of stress-related genes, proteins and metabolic pathways 1,2 . However, halophytes develop a robust and sophisticated protective system and accumulate secondary metabolites under appropriate levels of salt stress, which may be responsible for maintaining homeostasis and protecting against excessive reactive oxygen species-induced oxidative stress 3 .…”