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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2024.1518906

Identification of Salvia miltiorrhiza germplasm resources based on metabolomics and DNA barcoding

Provisionally accepted
Gaojie He Gaojie He 1Jinhui Man Jinhui Man 1Ying Chen Ying Chen 1Xiaoqin Zhang Xiaoqin Zhang 1Xin Wang Xin Wang 1Kelu An Kelu An 1Laha Amu Laha Amu 1Wenqin Chen Wenqin Chen 1Baowei Wang Baowei Wang 1Yue Shi Yue Shi 2,3Xiaohui Wang Xiaohui Wang 2,4Shengli Wei Shengli Wei 1,2*
  • 1 School of Chinese Materia Medica, Beijing University of Chinese Medicines, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
  • 2 Engineering Research Center of Good Agricultural Practice for Chinese Crude Drugs, Ministry of Education, Beijing 102488, People’ Republic of China, Beijing, China
  • 3 School of Biology and Medicine, Beijing City University, Beijing 100094, China, Beijing, China
  • 4 Modern Research Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Chaoyang, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Salvia miltiorrhizae radix et rhizoma (Danshen), a vital medicinal material for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular ailments, faces challenges due to adulterants and intraspecific variability affecting clinical safety. This study collects S. miltiorrhiza from different regions, as well as commonly encountered adulterants in the market. Initially, fingerprinting analysis discovers that Salvia miltiorrhiza radix (S. miltiorrhiza radix) and its adulterants do not exhibit consistency in their chemical compositions. The compounds selected by broad-targeted metabolomics can distinguish S. miltiorrhiza radix from Salvia yunnanensis radix (S. yunnanensis radix), Dipsacus asperoides radix (D. asperoides radix), and Arctium lappa radix (A. lappa radix). S. miltiorrhiza can be separated from the common plants in the genus Salvia by chloroplast genomes. Fragments atpF and rps4-trnT-UGU are further screened as potential DNA barcodes of S. miltiorrhiza, and 259 samples of S. miltiorrhiza from 13 provinces and 21 origins are amplified and sequenced. The two fragments are jointly analyzed to form 62 haplotypes, named Hap1 to Hap62, of which Hap37 is the dominant haplotype, accounting for 11%. The unique haplotypes found in Shanxi Luoyang, Shandong Qingdao and other places can be used as molecular geographic markers for the identification of the germplasm source of S. miltiorrhiza. In this study, we systematically differentiate S. miltiorrhiza and its adulterants, as well as S. miltiorrhiza from different origins. This study provides strong scientific support for the clinical safety of S. miltiorrhiza, the introduction of cultivation, and the selection and breeding of varieties.

    Keywords: Salvia miltiorrhiza, Targeted metabolomics, Chloroplast genome, DNA barcoding, Germplasm resource identification

    Received: 29 Oct 2024; Accepted: 13 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 He, Man, Chen, Zhang, Wang, An, Amu, Chen, Wang, Shi, Wang and Wei. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Shengli Wei, School of Chinese Materia Medica, Beijing University of Chinese Medicines, Beijing, 10248, Beijing Municipality, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.