| Objective: Carthamus tinctorius L.,as a traditional medicinal plant for both medicine and food,has the effects of promoting blood circulation,dredging channels,dispelling blood stasis and relieving pain,but the quality and efficacy of safflower from different habitats are different due to the difference of secondary metabolites.Based on the chemicalecological characteristics,this study explored the differences and causes of safflower in different producing areas.Methods: First,extraction and detection of C.tinctorius metabolites from different producing areas:collect C.tinctorius from four major producing areas of Sichuan,Xinjiang,Yunnan and Henan,and detect the nonvolatile secondary metabolites of safflower by freeze-drying grinding extraction combined with UPLC/MS;Liquid nitrogen grinding extraction combined with GC/MS was used to detect volatile secondary metabolites of C.tinctorius.Second,the screening of secondary Q-marker and the analysis of target preference: Taking Sichuan,a genuine producing area,as the control group,the differential metabolites from different producing areas were found by orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis(OPLSDA)and Person correlation analysis.Prediction of targets and mechanisms of differential metabolites by network pharmacology and molecular docking.The anti-inflammatory activity of C.tinctorius extract in vitro and the inhibition of CAII enzyme activity in vitro were detected.Third,analysis of ecological factors of secondary metabolites response:combining Arcgis and Ma Xent model to find out the ecological driving factors of C.tinctorius response environment,and mining the association between ecological factors and main active components of safflower through WGCNA analysis.According to the analysis results,the suitable growth area of safflower with high flavone content was predicted.Results: First,according to the comparison of self-built database,441 kinds of non-volatile secondary metabolites were detected,including 176 kinds of flavonoids(39.90%),155 kinds of phenolic acids(35.15%),65 kinds of alkaloids(14.74%),etc.There were 194 kinds of volatile metabolites,including 44 kinds of terpenoids(22.68%).The results of PCA and heat map show that C.tinctorius from different producing areas can be grouped into one group,which is significantly different from other producing areas.Second,kaempferol is one of the main medicinal components of safflower,and the content of kaempferol varies greatly from place to place,so it is suitable as a secondary Q-marker to distinguish C.tinctorius from different places.The main targets of the upregulated differential metabolites of C.tinctorius are CAII and TNF,and the target preference of C.tinctorius for anti-inflammatory and promoting blood circulation is the cause of the quality difference of C.tinctorius from different habitats.Third,the ecological driving factor that affects the adaptability of C.tinctorius is the average temperature in the warmest season(bio10).Excessive sun exposure will reduce the content of C.tinctorius flavonoids,and rainfall will increase the accumulation of C.tinctorius flavonoids,but excessive soil moisture will lead to flooding stress and reduce the yield of flavonoids.Conclusions: The quality of different ecotypes of C.tinctorius is affected by ecological factors of producing areas,which leads to great differences in the content of flavonoids.Kaempferol can be used as a secondary Q-marker to distinguish different quality C.tinctorius.The target preference caused by differential metabolites is the reason for the difference of C.tinctorius quality.Higher average temperature in the warmest season,less sunshine and sufficient rainfall in rainy season are the key factors for C.tinctorius to accumulate flavonoids. |
PDF Full Text Request