Vendl Oliver, Wawrosch Christoph, Noe Christian, Molina Carlos, Kahl Günter, Kopp Brigitte
Department of Pharmacognosy, University of Vienna, Althanstr. 14, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
Z Naturforsch C J Biosci. 2006 Nov-Dec;61(11-12):847-55. doi: 10.1515/znc-2006-11-1213.
In addition to the importance of many Dioscorea species (yams) as starchy staple food, some representatives are known and still used as a source for the steroidal sapogenin diosgenin, which, besides phytosterols derived from tall-oil, is an important precursor for partial synthesis of steroids for pharmaceutical research and applications. While in edible yams the diosgenin content should be as low as possible, a high yield of the compound is preferable for cultivars which are grown for the extraction of sterols. In the past, miscalculations and insufficiently precise techniques for quantification of diosgenin prevailed. Therefore we set out to re-evaluate the steroid content of a world collection of Dioscorea species, using leaves as sample material. We optimized diosgenin quantification techniques and fingerprinted the whole collection with the DNA amplification fingerprinting (DAF) technique. Total diosgenin contents ranged from 0.04 to 0.93% of dry weight within the collection. Several Dioscorea cultivars can be characterized via their DAF fingerprint patterns.
除了许多薯蓣属物种（山药）作为富含淀粉的主食的重要性之外，一些品种已知且仍被用作甾体皂苷元薯蓣皂苷元的来源，除了从妥尔油衍生的植物甾醇之外，它还是药物研究和应用中甾体部分合成的重要前体。虽然在可食用山药中薯蓣皂苷元含量应尽可能低，但对于用于提取甾醇的品种，该化合物的高产率是更可取的。过去，薯蓣皂苷元定量存在计算错误和技术不够精确的情况。因此，我们着手使用叶片作为样本材料，重新评估世界范围内薯蓣属物种收集品的甾体含量。我们优化了薯蓣皂苷元定量技术，并使用DNA扩增指纹技术（DAF）对整个收集品进行指纹图谱分析。收集品中总薯蓣皂苷元含量范围为干重的0.04%至0.93%。几个薯蓣属品种可以通过它们的DAF指纹图谱特征来表征。
