Comparative Analysis of Carbohydrates, Nucleosides and Amino Acids in Different Parts of Trichosanthes kirilowii Maxim. by (Ultra) High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Coupled with Tandem Mass Spectrometry and Evaporative Light Scattering Detector Methods.

Huang-Qin Zhang,Pei Liu,Ling Dong,Da-Wei Qian,Zhen-Hua Zhu,Er-Xin Shang,Wei-Wen Li,Jin-Ao Duan,Hui-Wei Li

doi:10.3390/molecules24071440

Abstract

Trichosanthes kirilowii Maxim. is one of the original plants for traditional Chinese medicines Trichosanthis Fructus, Trichosanthis Semen, Trichosanthis Pericarpium and Trichosanthis Radix. Amino acids, nucleosides and carbohydrates are usually considered to have nutritional value and health-care efficacy. In this study, methods involving high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with evaporative light scattering detector (HPLC-ELSD), UV-visible spectrophotometry and ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) were established for quantifying carbohydrates (fructose, glucose, stachyose, raffinose and polysaccharide), fourteen nucleosides and twenty one amino acids. Moreover, sixty-three samples from nine different parts, including pericarp, seed, fruit pulp, stem, leaf, main root, main root bark, lateral root and lateral root bark of T. kirilowii from different cultivated varieties were examined. The established methods were validated with good linearity, precision, repeatability, stability, and recovery. The results showed that the average content of total amino acids in roots (15.39 mg/g) and root barks (16.38 mg/g) were relatively higher than for others. Contents of nucleosides in all parts of T. kirilowii were below 1.5 mg/g. For carbohydrates, fruit pulp has a higher content than others for glucose (22.91%), fructose (20.63%) and polysaccharides (27.29%). By using partial least-squared discriminate analysis (PLS-DA), Variable importance in the projection (VIP) plots and analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis, the characteristic components of the different organs (fruit, stems and leaves, roots) were found. This analysis suggested there were potential medicinal and nutritive health care values in various parts of the T. kirilowii, which provided valuable information for the development and utilization of T. kirilowii.

Highlights

Trichosanthes kirilowii Maxim. (T. kirilowii) is a perennial vine of the Cucurbitaceae family.The fruit, pericarp, seeds and roots of T. kirilowii are traditional Chinese medicines recorded in ChinesePharmacopoeia 2015, named Trichosanthis tructus, Trichosanthis pericarpium, Trichosanthis semen and Trichosanthis radix, respectively
Since nucleosides and amino acids have little ultraviolet (UV) absorbance, their detection and accurate quantitation is a challenge with weak retention and poor separation as well as difficult detection using the conventional reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC)-UV
The UHPLC-MS/MS technique was applied for analysis and identification of nucleosides and amino acids from T. kirilowii

Summary

Introduction

Trichosanthes kirilowii Maxim. (T. kirilowii) is a perennial vine of the Cucurbitaceae family.The fruit, pericarp, seeds and roots of T. kirilowii are traditional Chinese medicines recorded in ChinesePharmacopoeia 2015, named Trichosanthis tructus, Trichosanthis pericarpium, Trichosanthis semen and Trichosanthis radix, respectively. (T. kirilowii) is a perennial vine of the Cucurbitaceae family. The fruit, pericarp, seeds and roots of T. kirilowii are traditional Chinese medicines recorded in Chinese. Pharmacopoeia 2015, named Trichosanthis tructus, Trichosanthis pericarpium, Trichosanthis semen and Trichosanthis radix, respectively. The fruit parts (fruit, pericarp and seeds) of T. kirilowii were mainly used for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases and lung diseases in the clinic [1,2,3]. The root was rich in protein [4,5], which had cytotoxicity to tumor cells [6,7] and hypoglycemic effects [8]. The leaf, stem, fruit pulp and root bark of T. kirilowii were usually regarded as waste, took up valuable land resources and caused environmental problems.

Methods

Results

Conclusion