Illumination on “Reserving Phloem and Discarding Xylem” and Quality Evaluation of Radix polygalae by Determining Oligosaccharide Esters, Saponins, and Xanthones

Abstract

The root of Polygala tenuifolia Willd. or Polygala sibirica L. exhibits protective effects on the central nervous system and is frequently used to treat insomnia, amnesia, and other cognitive dysfunction. In our study, we studied nine bioactive compounds spanning oligosaccharide esters, saponins, and xanthones by using a sensitive, efficient, and validated method established on ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry. The quantified result of interesting compounds proved that accumulation of those compounds were found in phloem rather than in xylem. By taking the standardized result of nine compound contents into account, the “Spider-web” analytical result of xylem and phloem from Radix polygalae (RP) unveiled the rationality of RP’s classical use in clinic including discarding the xylem and reserving the phloem. Moreover, the remarkable variation was also revealed from the quantitative result of 45 samples with different diameters from the different origins, which did not significantly correlate with the variation of RP’s diameter. Our study could shed the light on the quality assessment of RP for further research and illustrate the scientific connotation of the processing method of “discarding the xylem and reserving the phloem”.

Molecular Regulation of Catalpol and Acteoside Accumulation in Radial Striation and non-Radial Striation of Rehmannia glutinosa Tuberous Root

“…Chemical composition is an important factor affecting the quality of medicinal materials. However, it is not uniformly distributed in the medicinal materials, as well as the expression of related biosynthesis genes, which all have obvious tissue specificity, such as Radix polygalae [36], Salvia miltiorrhiza [8], Lonicera japonica [37], and Radix paeoniae [38]. Therefore, with the rapid development of high throughput sequencing technology, transcriptome sequencing has become an effective method to identify the mechanisms of active component accumulation in medicinal plants.…”

Metabolomic Determination of Specialized Metabolites Using Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry in the Traditional Chinese Medicines Astragali Radix and Hedysari Radix

“…3 Among them, saikosaponins particularly accumulate at the periderm of Bupleuri Radix, 4 while toxic metabolites, such as aconitine, mesaconitine, and hypaconitine, mainly exist in Aconiti Radix. 5 Spanning oligosaccharide esters, saponins, and xanthones detected in Polygalae Radix 6 are mainly present in the phloem, while active saponins, such as notoginsenoside R1, ginsenoside Rg1, ginsenoside Rb1, and ginsenoside Rd of Notoginseng Radix, 7 are primarily detected in the xylem. However, the metabolites present in AR and HR as well as their pharmacological activity remain largely unknown.…”

Study of the Variation of Phenolic Acid and Flavonoid Content from Fresh Artemisiae argyi Folium to Moxa Wool

“…Using the extracting method by 50% methanol aqueous solution as an example, E I-cCGA , E I-CGA , E I-CA , E´I -RUT , E I-iCAB , E I-iCAA , E I-iCAC , E I-JAC, and E I-EUP were employed to establish nine dimensions of the "spider-web" mode (p i ) for ultrasonic extracting by heating (60 • C), and E I-cCGA , E I-CGA , E I-CA , E I-RUT , E I-iCAB , E I-iCAA , E I-iCAC , E I-JAC, and E I-EUP were used to set up nine dimensions of the "spider-web" mode (p i ) for ultrasonic extraction, all of which are displayed in Figure 1. The calculation formulas were employed to calculate the shaded areas of the "spider-web" mode [19]. The bigger the shaded area, the closer it was to the most optimal extraction condition.…”