Abstract
Wuzhimaotao (Ficus hirta Vahl) is an important medicinal and edible plant in China. The extract from the roots of Ficus hirta Vahl contains phenylpropanoid compounds, such as coumarins and flavonoids, which are the main active components of this Chinese herbal medicine. In this study, we analyzed the transcriptomic and metabolomic data of the hydrogen-water-treated roots of Ficus hirta Vahl and a control group. The results showed that many genes and metabolites were regulated in the roots of Ficus hirta Vahl that were treated with hydrogen water. Compared with the control group, 173 genes were downregulated and 138 genes were upregulated in the hydrogen-rich water treatment group. Differential metabolite analysis through LC-MS showed that 168 and 109 metabolites had significant differences in positive and negative ion mode, respectively. In the upregulated metabolites, the main active components of Wuzhimaotao, such as the phenylpropane compounds naringin, bergaptol, hesperidin, and benzofuran, were found. Integrated transcriptomic and metabolomic data analysis showed that four and one of the most relevant pathways were over enriched in positive and negative ion mode, respectively. In the relationship between metabolites and DEGs, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis and metabolism play an important role. This indicates that phenylpropanoid biosynthesis and metabolism may be the main metabolic pathways regulated by hydrogen water. Our transcriptome analysis showed that most of the DEGs with |log2FC| ≥ 1 are transcription factor genes, and most of them are related to plant hormone signal transduction, stress resistance, and secondary metabolism, mainly phenylpropanoid biosynthesis and metabolism. This study provides important evidence and clues for revealing the botanical effect mechanism of hydrogen and a theoretical basis for the application of hydrogen agriculture in the cultivation of Chinese herbal medicine.
Highlights
Wuzhimaotao (Ficus hirta Vahl) is a common Chinese herbal medicine in the Lingnan area of China
To investigate the metabolic pathways that were perturbed in the roots of Ficus hirta Vahl by the hydrogen water, we performed an integrated analysis of metabolomics and transcriptomics
In order to further understand the differences between hydrogen-water-treated and control groups, we use Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for metabolite composition analysis, and we performed partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) to sharpen the separation between groups of observations by rotating PCA components such that a maximum separation among classes was obtained and variables carrying the class separating information were located
Summary
Wuzhimaotao (Ficus hirta Vahl) is a common Chinese herbal medicine in the Lingnan area of China. It is a folk homologous plant of food and medicine, which is called Guangdong ginseng. It is used by Hakka people in southern China to treat diseases such as spleen deficiency, tuberculosis, weakness, rheumatism, night sweats, and agalactism [1,2,3]. Wuzhimaotao uses the roots of Ficus hirta Vahl as medicine. It is mainly distributed in Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Fujian, Yunnan, Hong Kong of China, and Southeast Asian countries. Modern pharmacological studies show that these compounds have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, and antitumor effects [4]
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