Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis, Affiliated Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210028, China.
Department of Metabolomics, Jiangsu Province Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210028, China.
J Pharm Biomed Anal. 2022 Sep 20;219:114927. doi: 10.1016/j.jpba.2022.114927. Epub 2022 Jul 6.
Si-Jun-Zi decoction (SJZD) with ginseng as the principal medicinal herb is a traditional Chinese Medicine multi-herb prescription that commonly employed to treat colorectal cancer etc. Previous studies showed that nearly half of the commercial ginseng was sulfur-fumigated, one of the postharvest processing methods that commonly causes sulfur-dioxide (SO) residue and chemical composition transformation in medical herbs. In this study, the effect of sulfur-fumigated ginseng on global quality of SJZD was evaluated by UPLC-QTOF-MS/MS based metabolomics and multiple chromatographic techniques based glycomics strategies. For non-saccharides components, sulfur-fumigated ginseng led to the emergence of sulfur-containing derivatives and alteration of saponins and flavonoids in SJZD. For saccharide components, sulfur-fumigated ginseng decreased the total contents and molecular weights of polysaccharides, changed the monosaccharide composition of polysaccharides, and increased the contents of oligosaccharides and free monosaccharides of SJZD. The alterations of SJZD were aggravated with the sulfur-fumigated content of ginseng. Those phenomena might be attributed to 1) sulfur-fumigation caused the generation of sulfur-containing derivatives in ginseng, which further transferred to SJZD, and 2) sulfur-fumigation caused the residue of SO in ginseng, which reduced the pH value and further changed the dissolution of saponins and flavonoids and accelerated the degradation of the polysaccharides to oligosaccharides and/or monosaccharides in SJZD. Furthermore, although storage reduced the SO residue in sulfur-fumigated ginseng, it couldn't recover the alterations of chemical profiles in SJZD. In conclusion, sulfur-fumigated ginseng altered the global quality of SJZD, which promoted that extra attention must be paid during the application of herbal formulas that containing sulfur-fumigated herbs.
四君子汤（SJZD）以人参为主药，是一种传统的中药复方，常用于治疗大肠癌等疾病。先前的研究表明，近一半的商业人参经过硫磺熏蒸，这是一种常见的中药材加工方法，会导致二氧化硫（SO）残留和化学成分在中药材中的转化。在这项研究中，采用基于 UPLC-QTOF-MS/MS 的代谢组学和基于多种色谱技术的糖组学策略，评估了硫磺熏蒸人参对 SJZD 整体质量的影响。对于非糖类成分，硫磺熏蒸人参导致 SJZD 中出现含硫衍生物，并改变了皂苷和黄酮类化合物。对于糖类成分，硫磺熏蒸人参降低了多糖的总含量和分子量，改变了多糖的单糖组成，并增加了 SJZD 中寡糖和游离单糖的含量。随着人参硫磺熏蒸含量的增加，SJZD 的变化加剧。这些现象可能归因于 1）硫磺熏蒸导致人参中生成含硫衍生物，进一步转移到 SJZD 中，2）硫磺熏蒸导致人参中 SO 残留，降低 pH 值，进一步改变皂苷和黄酮类化合物的溶解，并加速 SJZD 中多糖向寡糖和/或单糖的降解。此外，尽管储存降低了硫磺熏蒸人参中的 SO 残留，但不能恢复 SJZD 中化学特征的变化。总之，硫磺熏蒸人参改变了 SJZD 的整体质量，这表明在应用含有硫磺熏蒸草药的草药配方时必须格外注意。
