School of Pharmacy, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 1200 Cailun Road, Shanghai 201203, China.
Innovative Institute of Chinese Medicine and Pharmacy, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 1166 Liutai Avenue, Chengdu 611137, China.
Molecules. 2022 Jul 22;27(15):4687. doi: 10.3390/molecules27154687.
Scrophulariae Radix (SR) is one of the oldest and most frequently used Chinese herbs for oriental medicine in China. Before clinical use, the SR should be processed using different methods after harvest, such as steaming, "sweating", and traditional fire-drying. In order to investigate the difference in chemical constituents using different processing methods, the two-dimensional (2D) H-C heteronuclear single quantum correlation (H-C HSQC)-based metabolomics approach was applied to extensively characterize the difference in the chemical components in the extracts of SR processed using different processing methods. In total, 20 compounds were identified as potential chemical markers that changed significantly with different steaming durations. Seven compounds can be used as potential chemical markers to differentiate processing by sweating, hot-air drying, and steaming for 4 h. These findings could elucidate the change of chemical constituents of the processed SR and provide a guide for the processing. In addition, our protocol may represent a general approach to characterizing chemical compounds of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and therefore might be considered as a promising approach to exploring the scientific basis of traditional processing of TCM.
玄参（SR）是中国传统医学中最古老、使用最频繁的中草药之一。在临床使用前，SR 应在收获后采用不同的方法进行加工，如蒸、“发汗”和传统的火烘。为了研究不同加工方法对化学成分的影响，本研究采用二维（2D）H-C 异核单量子相关（H-C HSQC）代谢组学方法，广泛表征不同加工方法处理的 SR 提取物中的化学成分差异。共鉴定出 20 种化合物为潜在的化学标志物，其随蒸制时间的不同而显著变化。7 种化合物可用作潜在的化学标志物，以区分发汗、热空气干燥和蒸制 4 小时的处理方法。这些发现可以阐明加工 SR 化学成分的变化，并为加工提供指导。此外，我们的方案可能代表了一种表征中药（TCM）化学化合物的通用方法，因此可以被认为是探索 TCM 传统加工科学基础的有前途的方法。
