Department of Biochemistry, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Malar J. 2010 Nov 4;9:310. doi: 10.1186/1475-2875-9-310.
Artemisinin is the current drug of choice for treatment of malaria and a number of other diseases. It is obtained from the annual herb, Artemisia annua and some microbial sources by genetic engineering. There is a great concern that the artemisinin production at current rate will not meet the increasing demand by the pharmaceutical industry, so looking for additional sources is imperative.
In current study, artemisinin concentration was analysed and compared in the flowers, leaves, roots and stems of Artemisia annua and 14 other Artemisia species including two varieties each for Artemisia roxburghiana and Artemisia dracunculus using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).
The highest artemisinin concentration was detected in the leaves (0.44 ± 0.03%) and flowers (0.42 ± 0.03%) of A. annua, followed by the flowers (0.34 ± .02%) of A. bushriences and leaves (0.27 ± 0%) of A. dracunculus var dracunculus. The average concentration of artemisinin varied in the order of flowers > leaves > stems > roots.
This study identifies twelve novel plant sources of artemisinin, which may be helpful for pharmaceutical production of artemisinin. This is the first report of quantitative comparison of artemisinin among a large number of Artemisia species.
青蒿素是目前治疗疟疾和其他一些疾病的首选药物。它是从一年生草本植物青蒿和一些通过基因工程获得的微生物来源中提取的。人们非常担心，青蒿素的目前产量将无法满足制药行业不断增长的需求，因此寻找额外的来源迫在眉睫。
在目前的研究中，使用高效液相色谱法（HPLC）分析并比较了青蒿和 14 种其他青蒿属植物的花、叶、根和茎中的青蒿素浓度，其中包括 2 种各为青蒿和龙蒿的变种。
青蒿素浓度最高的是青蒿的叶（0.44 ± 0.03%）和花（0.42 ± 0.03%），其次是青蒿 Bushriences 的花（0.34 ± 0.02%）和龙蒿 var dracunculus 的叶（0.27 ± 0%）。青蒿素的平均浓度顺序为花 > 叶 > 茎 > 根。
本研究鉴定了 12 种青蒿素的新植物来源，这可能有助于青蒿素的药物生产。这是首次对大量青蒿属植物进行青蒿素定量比较的报告。
