Abstract
Gentiana rigescens Franch. ex Hemsl. is an important medicinal plant in China and the over exploitation of wild resources has affected its quality and clinical efficacy. The accumulation of plant secondary metabolites is not only determined by their genetic characteristics but also influenced by environmental factors. At present, many studies on evaluating the environmental conditions of its planting area are still in the qualitative stage. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a systematic evaluation method to deeply analyze the impact of environmental factors on the quality of medicinal materials and quickly verify the geographical origin. In this study, the contents of five iridoids (loganic acid, swertiamarin, sweroside, gentiopicroside and 6'-O-β-D-glucopyranosylgentiopicroside) of G. rigescens from 45 different origins (including 441 individuals) of Yunnan Province in China were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography. Analytical procedures of one-way analysis of variance, correlation analysis, principal components analysis, and hierarchical cluster analysis were employed to interpret the correlation of iridoid content and environmental factors. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) combined with two multivariate analysis methods (partial least squares discriminant analysis; support vector machines, SVM) was used to discriminate four major producing areas (158 individuals). The combination of SVM with grid search algorithm achieved an accuracy of 100% in the test set. One-way analysis of variance showed that the contents of five iridoids in root tissues of G. rigescens varied significantly among different origins, which was also verified by the chemometrics analysis results of hierarchical cluster analysis. The results of correlation analysis indicated that the high value of altitude and precipitation were unfavorable for the accumulation of these five iridoids. A correlation between increase of temperature and iridoid accumulation was observed. This study provided a certain theoretical basis for the resource protection and development of G. rigescens based on the correlation analysis between the ecological environment factors and quality.
Highlights
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) known as Radix Gentianae, with root and rhizome being the major parts used medicinally
The genuine producing area, which refers to the terminology of daodi in Chinese, of Gentiana rigescens Franch is located in Yunnan Province of China, and medicines produced in this place have higher quality and superior clinical effects than the same species originated from other regions (Zhao et al, 2012)
This study aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of distinguishing the geographical origin of G. rigescens based on the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) spectral information using the partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) and support vector machine (SVM) algorithms
Summary
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) known as Radix Gentianae, with root and rhizome being the major parts used medicinally. The genuine producing area, which refers to the terminology of daodi in Chinese, of Gentiana rigescens Franch is located in Yunnan Province of China, and medicines produced in this place have higher quality and superior clinical effects than the same species originated from other regions (Zhao et al, 2012). The root of Radix Gentiana is found to contain the 2,3-dihydroxybenzoates (gentisides A-B) with favorable neurotrophic and protective effects, making it a potential material as the functional food against Alzheimer's disease (AD) (Gao et al, 2010; Mustafa et al, 2016). As an important natural medicine, G. rigescens is used as a raw material of Chinese drug such as “Long Dan Xie Gan Tang,” and in clinical medicine. G. rigescens is a kind of plants with remarkable physiological activity, which has shown great value in the development and utilization of medicinal plant resources
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