Abstract
The quality of traditional Chinese herbal medicine, which plays a very important role in the health system of China, is determined by the active substances produced by the plants. The type, content, and proportion of these substances may vary depending on ecological factors in areas where the plants are grown. Sinopodophyllum hexandrum (Royle) T.S. Ying, an endangered plant species with great medical value, was investigated in eight production locations representative of its natural geographical distribution range in China. The correlation between the contents of the active ingredients extracted from the roots and rhizomes of S. hexandrum and the ecological factors were evaluated step-by-step using a series of computational biology methodologies. The results showed that ecological factors had significant effects on the contents but not on the types of the active ingredients in eight production locations. The primary ecological factors influencing the active substances included the annual average precipitation, July mean temperature, frost-free period, sunshine duration, soil pH, soil organic matter, and rapidly available potassium in the soil. The annual average precipitation was the most important determinant factor and was significantly and negatively correlated with the active ingredient contents (P < 0.001). In contrast, organic matter was the most important limiting factor and was significantly and positively correlated with the active substances. These ecological factors caused 98.13% of the total geographical variation of the active ingredient contents. The climate factors contributed more to the active ingredient contents than did the soil factors. It was concluded that from the view of the contents of the secondary metabolites and ecological factors of each growing location, in Jingyuan, Ningxia Province, and Yongdeng, Gansu Province, conditions were favorable to the production of podophyllotoxin and lignans, whereas in Shangri-La, Yunnan Province, and Nyingchi, Tibet, conditions were favorable to the production of quercetin and kaempferol.
Highlights
Plants have been used for centuries in traditional medicine and currently a quarter of all prescribed pharmaceuticals in industrialized countries contain compounds derived from plants, directly or indirectly via semi-synthesis [1]
The present study aims at clarifying the environmental factors affecting the production of active ingredients of S. hexandrum in different production locations where S. hexandrum has been naturally growth according to historical records in order to suggest the best production areas for this wild species, promote its reasonable exploitation for the production of medicinal drugs rather than extensively harvesting wild resources
Significant differences were observed in the active ingredient contents in the roots and rhizomes of Sinopodophyllum hexandrum planted at different production locations (Fig 3), whereas insignificant differences were noted in the types of constitutes (Fig 2, Table 4)
Summary
Plants have been used for centuries in traditional medicine and currently a quarter of all prescribed pharmaceuticals in industrialized countries contain compounds derived from plants, directly or indirectly via semi-synthesis [1]. The most important lignan for human health is arguably the most active cytotoxic aryltetralin lignan, podophyllotoxin (PTOX), as a precursor for the semi-synthesis of the anticancer pharmaceuticals etoposide (VP-16), teniposide (VM-26), GP-7, and NK-611 [5,6,7,8,9,10]. These chemotherapeutic drugs have been used for cancer therapy, including the treatment of lung cancer, cervical cancer, testicular cancer, neuroblastoma, hepatoma, and certain leukemias [5,6,11,12]. In addition to its role in anti-cancer drugs, PTOX is the starting compound of a new derivative, CPH-82, which is included in clinical trials for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in Europe [13]
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