RESUMO
The Qinba areas, located in the Central China, represent 317000 km2, cover 6 provinces. The major mountain of Qinba areas, the Qinling, separates China North and South. This region is one of the areas with the most bio?diversity and ecological importance in China and globally, and considered as natural gene bank and bio-resource bank. Qinba mountain areas, together with the Alps in Europe and the Rocky Mountains in North America, are known as the"Three sisters of the earth"by the geological and biological circles. Most of the lands in this region are protected as national park, natural reserve, water resource protection area, etc. These areas have well preserved ecosystem and breeding and habitat area for many endangered species of plants and animals, inculding Panda. In this region, there are more than 4000 species of higher plants, about 2000 species of medicinal plants and animals, 200 species of wild ornamental plants and 180 species of economic fungi with edible and medicinal value in those areas. Medicinal plant cultivation, eco-agricul?ture and ecotourism are the major industries in this region. The State Key Laboratory of Biological Resources and Ecological Environment of Qinba Areas, located in Hanzhong, the central city of Qinba, is focusing on pan-regional biological resources research and rational utilization, ecological protection, and comprehensive and coordinated regional development.
RESUMO
OBJECTIVE Epimedium is rich in a variety of beneficial active ingredients, and has been widely used in the ethnopharmacological practices, however, its biotransformation in gastrointestinal digestions remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate the dynamic changes of components and biological activity of Epimedium in the in vitro simu? lated digestion and subsequent human faecal fermentation. METHODS The models of in vitro simulated saliva, gastric and intestinal digestion, as well as colonic fermentation were constructed to simulate the digestion process of Epimedium. The dynamic changes of components of Epimedium during the simulated digestions in vitro and subsequent human faecal fermentation were investigated by UPLC-MS, HPLC-DAD combined with principal component analysis (PCA) and multi-ingredient quantitative analysis. RESULTS A variety of metabolites with high contents were produced after 0.5 h of intestinal digestion and colonic fermentation 0.5 h. Application of PCA to HPLC data showed the obvious separation of colonic fermentation 0.5 h stage samples from other colonic fermentation stages samples (24, 48 and 72 h). Addition? ally, non-digestion and saliva digestion stage samples clustered together, and there was obvious separation between intestinal digestion samples and gastric digestion samples. The contents of epimedium C, icariin and baohuside I all increased significantly after intestinal digestion [58.70 ± 7.08, 47.15 ± 5.68 and (12.78 ± 0.55) mg · g-1] compared with gastric digestion [29.00 ± 5.65, 17.40 ± 4.55 and (2.77 ± 0.19) mg·g-1]. There were significant differences between sample after 0.5 h of colonic fermentation [64.22 ± 9.32, 51.26 ± 6.33 and (16.68 ± 3.19) mg·g-1] and other time points (24, 48 and 72 h) in components and the contents of active ingredient, and the content of these components all decreased with the fermentation time. The ability of scavenging ABTS free radicals [IC50=(0.29 ± 0.02) g · L-1] increased significantly compared with gastric digestion [(1.57 ± 0.02) g·L-1], and after 0.5 h of colonic fermentation, the ability also increased significantly. CONCLUSION Gastrointestinal digestion had a significant impact on the contents of active components in Epimedium, and the metabolism of these components mainly occurred in the colon. The intestinal digestion and colonic fermentation significantly improved the anti-ABTS activity of epimedium.