Authentication of Zingiber Species Based on Analysis of Metabolite Profiles.

Chenxi Wang,Heshui Yu,Hui Ding,Meifang Song,Zhonglian Zhang,Jiaxin Yin,Zheng Li,Yue Zhang,Lifeng Han

doi:10.3389/fpls.2021.705446

Abstract

Zingiber corallinum and Zingiber montanum, which belong to the Zingiberaceae family, are traditional Chinese folk medicinal herbs in Guizhou and Yunnan Province of China. They share great similarities in morphology, chemical constituent, and DNA barcoding sequence. The taxonomy of the two Zingiber species is controversial and discrimination of traditional Chinese medicines directly affects the pharmacological and clinical effects. In the present study, we performed a systemic analysis of “super-barcode” and untargeted metabolomics between Z. corallinum and Z. montanum using chloroplast (cp) genome sequencing and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. Comparison and phylogenetic analysis of cp genomes of the two Zingiber species showed that the cp genome could not guarantee the accuracy of identification. An untargeted metabolomics strategy combining GC-MS with chemometric methods was proposed to distinguish the Zingiber samples of known variety. A total of 51 volatile compounds extracted from Z. corallinum and Z. montanum were identified, and nine compounds were selected as candidate metabolic markers to reveal the significant difference between Z. corallinum and Z. montanum. The performance of the untargeted metabolomic approach was verified with unknown Zingiber samples. Although the cp genomes could not be used to identify Zingiber species in this study, it will still provide a valuable genomics resource for population studies in the Zingiberaceae family, and the GC-MS based metabolic fingerprint is more promising for species identification and safe application of Z. corallinum and Z. montanum.

Highlights

Traditional Dai Medicine (TDM), and recorded in the “Bei Ye Jing” 2,500 years ago, is one of the ancient ethnomedicine in China (Zhang et al, 2012)
The complete cp genomes of Z. corallinum and Z. montanum composed of a single circular molecule with obvious quadripartite structure (Figure 1)
The cp genome-based fingerprinting indicated that the two Zingiber species are closely related, which is not enough to distinguish Z. corallinum and Z. montanum

Summary

Introduction

Traditional Dai Medicine (TDM), and recorded in the “Bei Ye Jing” 2,500 years ago, is one of the ancient ethnomedicine in China (Zhang et al, 2012). Bu Lei is one of the TDMs, and it is a common folk medicinal material in Yunnan, Guizhou Province and other places of China. It has the effect of strengthening the stomach and eliminating accumulation. It has been used in traditional medicine for the treatment of food swelling, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, hepatosplenomegaly, and hot rheumatic pain (Sharifi-Rad et al, 2017; Brillatz et al, 2020). There are two species of this medicine, namely, the rhizome of Zingiber corallinum. The discrimination of traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) directly affects the pharmacological and clinical effect (Duan et al, 2011). The discrimination of Z. corallinum and Z. montanum becomes a very important issue for patients

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion