Comprehensive Quality Assessment Based Specific Chemical Profiles for Geographic and Tissue Variation in Gentiana rigescens Using HPLC and FTIR Method Combined with Principal Component Analysis.

Jie Li,Yuan-Zhong Wang,Ji Zhang,Heng-Yu Huang,Yan-Li Zhao

doi:10.3389/fchem.2017.00125

Abstract

Roots, stems, leaves, and flowers of Longdan (Gentiana rigescens Franch. ex Hemsl) were collected from six geographic origins of Yunnan Province (n = 240) to implement the quality assessment based on contents of gentiopicroside, loganic acid, sweroside and swertiamarin and chemical profile using HPLC-DAD and FTIR method combined with principal component analysis (PCA). The content of gentiopicroside (major iridoid glycoside) was the highest in G. rigescens, regardless of tissue and geographic origin. The level of swertiamarin was the lowest, even unable to be detected in samples from Kunming and Qujing. Significant correlations (p < 0.05) between gentiopicroside, loganic acid, sweroside, and swertiamarin were found at inter- or intra-tissues, which were highly depended on geographic origins, indicating the influence of environmental conditions on the conversion and transport of secondary metabolites in G. rigescens. Furthermore, samples were reasonably classified as three clusters along large producing areas where have similar climate conditions, characterized by carbohydrates, phenols, benzoates, terpenoids, aliphatic alcohols, aromatic hydrocarbons, and so forth. The present work provided global information on the chemical profile and contents of major iridoid glycosides in G. rigescens originated from six different origins, which is helpful for controlling quality of herbal medicines systematically.

Highlights

Gentianae Radix et Rhizoma (Longdan in Chinese) has been prominent in treating liver diseases in the traditional Chinese medicine system, one of origins of which is the roots or rhizomes of Gentiana rigescens Franch. ex Hemsl (State Pharmacopoeia Commission, 2015)
principal component analysis (PCA) were performed for assessing the difference of chemical constituents in samples from various geographic origins using Fourier transform infrared spectra (FTIR) data sets, which were second derivative-transformed before analysis
For samples from Kunming (Table S6), loganic acids in flowers correlated positively (p < 0.01) to sweroside and swertiamarin in roots, respectively. These results revealed that chemical variation in G. rigescens showed strongly detectable associated with environmental conditions impacting the accumulation of iridoid glycosides by adjusting the transformation of intermediates and the transport of them between different tissues

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Gentianae Radix et Rhizoma (Longdan in Chinese) has been prominent in treating liver diseases in the traditional Chinese medicine system, one of origins of which is the roots or rhizomes of Gentiana rigescens Franch. ex Hemsl (State Pharmacopoeia Commission, 2015). It is not clear that how the geographical factors influence the content of secondary metabolites in GR, not just gentiopicroside, despite Wu et al (2017) establishing an evaluation strategy for discriminating GRs collected from different geographical origins by FT-IR coupled with PLS-DA and SVM-GS. Methods that can reflect the chemical features and accurately quantify target compounds in samples is critical to the quality control and assessment of herbal medicines. The most useful chemical constituents for diagnostic monitoring of storage effects on quality control of traded saffron was achieved using FT-MIR coupled to PCA, according to the study by Ordoudi et al (2014). The quality assessment of GR samples collected from six geographic origins of Yunnan area was carried out using HPLC combined with IR rather than other expensive techniques, in conjunction with the PCA. This study may provide some potential supports on the reasonable application and exploitation of GR

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Method Validation

AND DISCUSSION

Findings

CONCLUSION