Temporal Dynamics of Rhizosphere Communities Across the Life Cycle of Panax notoginseng.

Rhizosphere microbiome promotes plant growth; however, the succession of rhizosphere microbial community during the growth stages of perennial medicinal plant Panax notoginseng (P. notoginseng) is still unclear. Here, amplicon sequencing was performed to assess the succession characteristics of rhizosphere microbiomes during developmental stages. Results showed that bacterial and fungal communities were mainly shaped by the development stages. The microbial α-diversities first increased and then decreased with plant growth and the variation in microbial composition was active at the 3-year root growth (3YR) stage. The variation trend of cross-domain co-occurrence network complexity was similar to that of α-diversities. Cross-domain nodes decreased at the 3YR stage and fungal nodes increased at the 3YR stage. This study provided a detailed and systematic survey of rhizosphere microbiomes during the growth stages of P. notoginseng. The findings revealed that the development stages of P. notoginseng drove the temporal dynamics of rhizosphere communities. This study helps in harnessing the power of microbiomes to evaluate herbal medicine growth and provides valuable information to guide the microbial breeding of medical plants.

Detection and risk assessments of multi-pesticides in 1771 cultivated herbal medicines by LC/MS-MS and GC/MS-MS.

Focus on the safety of herbal medicines has mainly been directed towards the presence of intrinsic toxicity, as found in the cases of renal and hepatic dysfunction caused by aristolochic acids. However, contamination from extrinsic hazards may impart an even greater reduction in their safety and efficacy. This study reveals that pesticides were present in the majority (88%) of a comprehensive cross-section (n = 1771) of herbal medicine samples. Alarmingly, more than half (59%) contained pesticides over the European Pharmacopoeia (EP) limit, and 43% of them contained 35 varieties of banned, extremely toxic pesticides, eight of which were detected at levels over 500 times higher than the default Maximum Residue Limit (MRL). DDTs, carbofuran, and mevinphos were confirmed as being among the most risk-inducing pesticides by three different risk assessment methods, reported to produce carcinogenic, genotoxic, reproductive, and developmental effects, in addition to carrying nephrotoxicity and hepatotoxicity. In light of these findings, and withstanding that extrinsic hazards can be controlled unlike intrinsic toxicity, the authors here strongly recommend the application of herbal medicine quality-control measures and solutions to safeguard against a neglected but certainly potentially serious health risk posed to the majority of the global population that consumes herbal medicines.

Analysis on herbal medicines utilized for treatment of COVID-19.

As coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic poses a substantial global public health threat, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) was used in 91.50% of the COVID-19 cases in China, showing encouraging results in improving symptom management and reducing the deterioration, mortality, and recurrence rates. A total of 166 modified herbal formulae consisting of 179 single herbal medicines were collected for treating COVID-19 in China. Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizome, Scutellariae Radix, and Armeniacae Semen Amarum are the most frequently utilized in clinics, most of which are antipyretic (47, 26.26%), expectorant and cough-suppressing (22, 12.29%), and dampness-resolving (21, 11.73%) from traditional descriptions. A total of 1212 chemical components containing ß-sitosterol, stigmasterol, and quercetin were primarily selected. Additionally, using complex system entropy and unsupervised hierarchical clustering, 8 core herbal combinations and 10 new formulae emerged as potentially useful candidates for COVID-19. Finally, following scaffold analysis, self-organizing mapping (SOM) and cluster analysis, 12 clusters of molecules yielded 8 pharmacophore families of structures that were further screened as pharmacological targets in human metabolic pathways for inhibiting coronavirus. This article aims to make more easily accessible and share historical herbal knowledge used in contemporary treatments in a modern manner to assist researchers contain the global spread of COVID-19.

Heavy Metal Contaminations in Herbal Medicines: Determination, Comprehensive Risk Assessments, and Solutions.

Heavy metal contamination in herbal medicines is a global threat to human beings especially at levels above known threshold concentrations. The concentrations of five heavy metals cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), arsenic (As), mercury (Hg) and copper (Cu) were investigated using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) with 1773 samples around the world. According to Chinese Pharmacopoeia, 30.51% (541) samples were detected with at least one over-limit metal. The over-limit ratio for Pb was 5.75% (102), Cd at 4.96% (88), As at 4.17% (74), Hg at 3.78% (67), and of Cu, 1.75% (31). For exposure assessment, Pb, Cd, As, and Hg have resulted in higher than acceptable risks in 25 kinds of herbs. The maximal Estimated Daily Intake of Pb in seven herbs, of Cd in five, of Hg in four, and As in three exceeded their corresponding Provisional Tolerable Daily Intakes. In total 25 kinds of herbs present an unacceptable risk as assessed with the Hazard Quotient or Hazard Index. Additionally, the carcinogenic risks were all under acceptable limits. Notably, As posed the highest risk in all indicators including Estimated Daily Intake, Hazard Index, and carcinogenic risks. Therefore further study on enrichment effect of different states of As and special attention to monitoring shall be placed on As related contamination.

Medicinal Plant Analysis: A Historical and Regional Discussion of Emergent Complex Techniques.

The analysis of medicinal plants has had a long history, and especially with regard to assessing a plant's quality. The first techniques were organoleptic using the physical senses of taste, smell, and appearance. Then gradually these led on to more advanced instrumental techniques. Though different countries have their own traditional medicines China currently leads the way in terms of the number of publications focused on medicinal plant analysis and number of inclusions in their Pharmacopoeia. The monographs contained within these publications give directions on the type of analysis that should be performed, and for manufacturers, this typically means that they need access to more and more advanced instrumentation. We have seen developments in many areas of analytical analysis and particularly the development of chromatographic and spectroscopic methods and the hyphenation of these techniques. The ability to process data using multivariate analysis software has opened the door to metabolomics giving us greater capacity to understand the many variations of chemical compounds occurring within medicinal plants, allowing us to have greater certainty of not only the quality of the plants and medicines but also of their suitability for clinical research. Refinements in technology have resulted in the ability to analyze and categorize plants effectively and be able to detect contaminants and adulterants occurring at very low levels. However, advances in technology cannot provide us with all the answers we need in order to deliver high-quality herbal medicines and the more traditional techniques of assessing quality remain as important today.