ABSTRACT
Herbgenomics is an interdisciplinary subject between traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) and genomics.It is a comprehensive discipline covering multi-omics research in both medicinal organisms of TCM and the relationship of TCM to human body.It has been widely used in the research fields of medicinal model organisms,synthetic biology of TCM,identification of TCM molecules and breeding of medicinal plant cultivars,pharmacokinetics,and the study on the geoherbalism and medicinal of TCM.With the release of important documents,such as the Law of the People's Republic of China on TCM and the Outline of TCM Development Strategy(2016-2030),the Chinese medicine industry has entered a new and high-level development opportunity and the herbgenomic research area has got a landmark achievement.The training of well-rounded students and researchers is a key point for the development of TCM industry and the reform of medical colleges and universities.Therefore,the establishment of herbgenomics is particularly important for the modernization of TCM.At present,many colleges and universities have set up the course of Herbgenomics among graduate students and undergraduates,and initially formed a distinctive herbal genomics talent training system.This paper introduces the herbgenomics from the progress of the research,the development of teaching courses,the background of the textbook,the main content and key technologies of the discipline and the prospect of discipline construction,in order to provide theoretical basis and methodological support for the discipline construction,personal training and scientific research of herbgenomics.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE Licorice is used throughout the world as a traditional herbal remedy. Ac-cording to Chinese traditional medicine licorice alone can be used to treat inflammation.Although there have been some studies investigated the anti-inflammatory ingredients of licorice, but for the potency of flavonoid glycoside and their aglycones on inflammation are not evaluated.This study was designed to assess the contributions of licorice flavonoid glycosides and their aglycons to its anti-inflammatory and hypnotic effects. METHODS For the flavonoid aglycone's enrichment, the extract of licorice (EL) was fermented in submerged culture of the edible fungus Grifola frondosa HB0071 mycelia which can produce β-glucosidase and catalyze the flavonoid glycosides to aglycones.EL and fermented extract of licorice (FEL) were used in this study. The anti-inflammation test was carried out in arachidonic acid (AA)-induced ear edema model and the hypnotic test was performed by using electroencephalogram (EEG)analysis method in normal freely moving SD rats.The chemicals constituents were analyzed by HPLC.RESULTS During fermentation,the falvonoid glycosides of licorice were hydrolyzed by the time process.Along with fermentation time,the concentration of the major flavonoid glycosides,liquiritin and isoliquiritin were decreased obviously, and simultaneously their aglycons, liquiritigenin and isoliquiriti-genin were remarkably increased in FEL.Moreover,the content of another major constituent glycyrrhi-zic acid and glycyrrhetinic acid were not changed after the fermentation. In AA-induced mice ear ede-ma test,after topical application,FEL(effective dose range:5-20 μg·ear-1)showed more potent inhibito-ry activity than EL(effective dose range:25-100 μg·ear-1).On the other hand,oral administration of EL and FEL exhibited the same hypnotic potency and both enhanced the total sleep time including rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM sleep time. CONCLUSION These results suggested that the enrichment of flavonoid aglycons such as liquiritigenin and isoliquiritigenin enhanced the anti-inflam-matory potency of licorice extract,and this potentiation has nothing to do with glycyrrhizic acid or glycyr-rhetinic acid.In addition,enrichment of flavonoid aglycones did not alter the hypnotic effect of licorice.