Shen Jianjun, Pu Weiting, Song Qiyan, Ye Bihuan, Shi Xiaoxiao, Chen Youwu, Yu Yefei, Li Haibo
Zhejiang Academy of Forestry, Hangzhou 310023, China.
School of Forestry and Biotechnology, Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University, Hangzhou 311300, China.
Pharmaceuticals (Basel). 2024 Aug 15;17(8):1074. doi: 10.3390/ph17081074.
The aims of this study were to explore the significant chemical changes in functional components induced by the traditional processing method and evaluate whether this method based on nine cycles of steaming and drying can effectively enhance the medicinal effects of rhizome. A global analysis on dynamic changes in secondary metabolites during nine processing cycles was performed, and the significantly differentially accumulated secondary metabolites were initially identified based on the secondary metabolome. Unsupervised principal component analysis (PCA), hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA), and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLA-DA) on secondary metabolites clearly showed that processing significantly increased the global accumulation of secondary metabolites in processed rhizomes compared to unprocessed crude rhizomes. The first six processing cycles induced drastic changes in the accumulation of functional components, while the last three did not induce further changes. The accumulations of most functional components were significantly enhanced after the first three cycles and stabilized after six cycles; meanwhile, the first three cycles also led to numerous new components. However, the enhancing effects were unavoidably reversed or weakened under continued processing lasting 6-9 cycles. Furthermore, continued processing also reduced the contents of a small number of original components to undetectable levels. Processing induced some significantly enriched Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways, among which the first three processing cycles enhanced the synthesis of various secondary metabolites and significantly affected the metabolisms of amino acids. In conclusion, this study not only reveals that processing can effectively enhance the medicinal effects, by two main mechanisms including enhancing chemical synthesis and inducing structural transformation of functional components, but also provides theoretical guidance for the optimization of the traditional processing method based on nine cycles of steaming and drying for achieving optimal effects on enhancing the medicinal effects of rhizome.
本研究旨在探讨传统加工方法引起的功能成分显著化学变化，并评估基于九次蒸制和干燥循环的该方法是否能有效增强根茎的药用效果。对九个加工循环中次生代谢产物的动态变化进行了全局分析，并基于次生代谢组初步鉴定了显著差异积累的次生代谢产物。对次生代谢产物进行的无监督主成分分析（PCA）、层次聚类分析（HCA）和正交偏最小二乘判别分析（OPLA-DA）清楚地表明，与未加工的粗根茎相比，加工显著增加了加工后根茎中次生代谢产物的全局积累。前六个加工循环引起了功能成分积累的剧烈变化，而后三个循环未引起进一步变化。大多数功能成分的积累在前三个循环后显著增强，并在六个循环后稳定下来；同时，前三个循环还产生了许多新成分。然而，在持续6-9个循环的加工过程中，增强效果不可避免地会逆转或减弱。此外，持续加工还将少量原始成分的含量降低到无法检测的水平。加工诱导了一些显著富集的京都基因与基因组百科全书（KEGG）途径，其中前三个加工循环增强了各种次生代谢产物的合成，并显著影响了氨基酸的代谢。总之，本研究不仅揭示了加工可以通过增强化学合成和诱导功能成分结构转变这两种主要机制有效增强药用效果，还为基于九次蒸制和干燥循环的传统加工方法的优化提供了理论指导，以实现对增强根茎药用效果的最佳作用。
