Abstract
Musk, the dried secretion from the musk sac gland which is located between the navel and genitals of mature male musk deer, is utilized as oriental medicine in east Asia. It has been utilized to treat conditions such as stroke, coma, neurasthenia, convulsions, and heart diseases in China since ancient times. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of musk in zoology, chemical composition, pharmacology, clinical applications, and quality control according to the up-to-date literature. Studies found that musk mainly contains macrocyclic ketones, pyridine, steroids, fatty acids, amino acids, peptides, and proteins, whilst the main active ingredient is muscone. Modern pharmacological studies have proven that musk possesses potent anti-inflammatory effects, neuroprotective effects, anti-cancer effects, antioxidant effects, etc. Moreover, muscone, the main active ingredient, possesses anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective, antioxidant, and other pharmacological effects. In the quality control of musk, muscone is usually the main detection indicator, and the common analytical method is GC, and researchers have established novel and convenient methods such as HPLC-RI, RP-UPLC-ELSD, and Single-Sweep Polarography. In addition, quality evaluation methods based on steroids and the bioactivity of musk have been established. As for the identification of musk, due to various objective factors such as the availability of synthetic Muscone, it is not sufficient to rely on muscone alone as an identification index. To date, some novel technologies have also been introduced into the identification of musk, such as the electronic nose and DNA barcoding technology. In future research, more in vivo experiments and clinical studies are encouraged to fully explain the pharmacological effects and toxicity of musk, and more comprehensive methods are needed to evaluate and control the quality of musk.
Highlights
Natural musk is the dried secretion from the musk sac gland which located between the navel and genitals of mature male Moschus berezovskii Flerov (Forest musk deer), Moschus sifanicus Przewalski (Alpine musk deer), or Moschus moschiferus Linnaeus (Siberian musk deer) of the Cervidae family [1,2,3]
The results showed that musk-1 could inhibit 5-lipoxygenase activity in neutrophils [41], the release of lysozyme [42,43,44,45], and plateletactivating factor production and acetyl-CoA-dependent
The results demonstrate that this method is a promising one for the quality control method of natural musk, but more relative studies need to be done to develop this approach more comprehensively
Summary
Natural musk is the dried secretion from the musk sac gland which located between the navel and genitals of mature male Moschus berezovskii Flerov (Forest musk deer), Moschus sifanicus Przewalski (Alpine musk deer), or Moschus moschiferus Linnaeus (Siberian musk deer) of the Cervidae family [1,2,3]. Seven species have been discovered in the aggregate worldwide, while the specified sources of natural musk in Chinese Pharmacopoeia (2020 edition) are Moschus berezovskii Flerov, Moschus sifanicus Przewalski, and Moschus moschiferus Linnaeus [1, 8]. The population of 7 species of musk deer is still decreasing [6, 12] They are currently listed in Appendix I in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and Category I of the State Key Protected Wildlife List of China [8, 13]. The group led by the Institute of Materia Medica Chinese Academy of Medical Science developed artificial musk, a musk-like mixture mainly containing synthetic muscone and other substitutes, in 1993 in China in response to the shortage of natural musk [14]. The farming of musk deer started in 1958 and preserving the wild populations at the same time in China, and expansion of musk deer farming has been made from on [3, 16]
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