Network Analysis of Transcriptome and LC-MS Reveals a Possible Biosynthesis Pathway of Anthocyanins in Dendrobium officinale.

Anthocyanins, a group of flavonoids, are widely present in plants and determine the colors of the peels of stems, fruits, and flowers. In this study, we used UHPLC-ESI-MS to identify anthocyanins in the herbal plant Dendrobium officinale, which has been used for centuries in China. The results indicated that the total anthocyanin content in samples from Guangxi was the highest. Seven anthocyanins were identified, and the fragmentation pathways were proposed from D. officinale. Most of the identified anthocyanins were composed of cyanidin and sinapoyl groups. We also carried out that the sinapoyl group had active sites on breast cancer receptors by using Schrödinger. The relative levels of the 7 anthocyanins in the samples from the three locations were determined. Transcriptomic analysis was used to analyze the sinapoyl anthocyanin synthesis-related genes in plants, such as genes encoding UGTs and serine carboxypeptidase. We speculated that sinapoyl anthocyanin biosynthesis was associated with the activities of certain enzymes, including chalcone flavonone isomerase-like, hydroxycinnamoyltransferase 1, UGT-83A1, UGT-88B1 isoform X1, serine carboxypeptidase-like 18 isoform X3, and serine carboxypeptidase-like 18.

Physicochemical and Antioxidant Properties of the Degradations of Polysaccharides from Dendrobium officinale and Their Suitable Molecular Weight Range on Inducing HeLa Cell Apoptosis.

Different molecular weight polysaccharides of Dendrobium officinale (DOPs) have gradually attracted attention because of their broad biological activities. They, however, remain poorly defined whether their antitumor activity is associated with molecular weight. In this study, the physicochemical, antioxidant, and antitumor properties of DOPs, including the crude polysaccharide (DOP) and its six degradation fractions (DOP1-DOP6) extracted from Dendrobium officinale, were determined. Consequently, DOPs were mainly composed of different ratios of mannose and glucose as follows: 5.15 : 1, 4.62 : 1, 4.19 : 1, 4.46 : 1, 4.32 : 1, 4.29 : 1, and 4.23 : 1, and their molecular weights were significantly different ranging from 652.29 kDa to 11.10 kDa. With the concentration increase of DOPs, the scavenging capacity against OH and DPPH free radicals increased. The antitumor ability of DOPs was different that DOP1-DOP5 (Mw: 176.29 kDa-28.48 kDa) exhibited the best antiproliferation activity than DOP (Mw: 652.29 kDa) and DOP6 (Mw: 11.10 kDa) in HeLa cells rather than PC9, A549, and HepG2 cells. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that DOP1 and DOP5 showed stronger capability on inducing apoptosis of HeLa cells than DOP and DOP6 via the mitochondrial pathway by upregulating the ratio of the Bax/Bal-2 mRNA expression. The results demonstrated that DOPs can be used as the potential natural antioxidant and antitumor products in pharmaceutical industries, and the molecular weight is a crucial influential factor of their antitumor activity that 28.48 kDa-176.29 kDa is a suitable range we may refer to.