School of Pharmacy, Jiangsu University, 301 Xuefu Road, Zhenjiang 212013, Jiangsu Province, China.
ADR Monitoring Center, Zhenjiang Food and Drug Supervision and Inspection Center, 62 Nanxu Road, Zhenjiang 212000, Jiangsu Province, China.
Biomed Res Int. 2020 Feb 6;2020:5439853. doi: 10.1155/2020/5439853. eCollection 2020.
Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizoma (GRER) has been used as a medicinal plant and dietary supplements for its beneficial effect in immunomodulatory effects. Sulfur fumigation (SF) processing was widely used in the storage and maintenance of Chinese medicine because of its convenience and cheapness. However, the disadvantage of SF has been reported, but the systematic study of SF on GRER was deficient. In this paper, the active ingredients, sulfur-fumigated products, immunomodulatory effect, and liver injury of SF-GRER were studied. After SF, the liquiritin decreased from 4.49 ± 0.03 mg/g to 3.94 ± 0.08 mg/g ( < 0.01). Compared with the NSF-GRER group, the SF-GRER group showed a decreased immunoregulation in the thymus index, spleen index, and serum IL-6 and SOD levels ( < 0.05). After 2 weeks of continuous intragastric administration of SF-GRER in healthy mice, the level of serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST) significantly increased ( < 0.05) and the area of liver lesion significantly increased compared with the NSF-GRER ( < 0.05) group. The sulfonated products (/, 631.13) corresponding to liquiritin apioside (/, 551.17) and isoliquiritin apioside (/, 551.17) were screened out in SF-GRER by using UPLC-Orbitrap-MS. The sulfonated products provided in this paper were discovered for the first time and could be powerfully applied for the identification of SF-GRER. SF destroyed the chemical composition of GRER, inhibited immunoregulation, and induced liver injury. The feasibility of this processing method needs to be reconsidered.
甘草（GRER）作为一种药用植物和膳食补充剂，因其具有免疫调节作用而被广泛使用。硫磺熏蒸（SF）处理因其方便、廉价而被广泛应用于中药材的贮藏和养护中。然而，SF 的缺点已经被报道过，但对 SF 对 GRER 的系统研究还很缺乏。本文研究了 SF 处理后 GRER 的活性成分、硫磺熏制品、免疫调节作用和肝损伤。SF 后，甘草酸的含量从 4.49±0.03mg/g 降至 3.94±0.08mg/g（<0.01）。与非 SF-GRER 组相比，SF-GRER 组的胸腺指数、脾脏指数、血清白细胞介素 6 和超氧化物歧化酶水平降低（<0.05）。在健康小鼠连续灌胃 SF-GRER 2 周后，血清天冬氨酸转氨酶（AST）水平明显升高（<0.05），与非 SF-GRER 组相比，肝脏病变面积明显增大（<0.05）。通过 UPLC-Orbitrap-MS 筛选出 SF-GRER 中甘草次酸苷（/，551.17）和异甘草次酸苷（/，551.17）对应的磺化产物（/，631.13）。本文首次发现了磺化产物，可有力地应用于 SF-GRER 的鉴定。SF 破坏了 GRER 的化学成分，抑制了免疫调节，导致了肝损伤。这种加工方法的可行性需要重新考虑。
