Salvia miltiorrhiza (Danshen in Chinese), is a well-known traditional Chinese medicinal plant, which is used as not only human medicine but also health-promotion food. Danshen has been extensively ...used for the treatment of various cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. As a major group of bioactive constituents from S. miltiorrhiza, water-soluble phenolic acids such as salvianolic acid B possessed good bioactivities including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and other health-promoting activities. It is of significance to improve the production of phenolic acids by modern biotechnology approaches to meet the increasing market demand. Significant progresses have been made in understanding the biosynthetic pathway and regulation mechanism of phenolic acids in S.miltiorrhiza, which will facilitate the process of targeted metabolic engineering or synthetic biology. Furthermore, multiple biotechnology methods such as in vitro culture, elicitation, hairy roots, endophytic fungi and bioreactors have been also used to obtain pharmaceutically active phenolic acids from S. miltiorrhiza. In this review, recent advances in bioactivities, biosynthetic pathway and biotechnological production of phenolic acid ingredients were summarized and future prospective was also discussed.
Highlights
Different nanotechnologies and nanomaterials with their efficient applications in functional food development are summarized.
Nanotechnologies boosted the food, medicine, and biotechnology ...sector through enhanced food bioavailability, food processing, packaging, and preservation are also reviewed.
This comprehensive review on nanotechnologies in food science describes the recent trend and future perspectives for future functional nanofood research and development.
Nanotechnology is a key advanced technology enabling contribution, development, and sustainable impact on food, medicine, and agriculture sectors. Nanomaterials have potential to lead qualitative and quantitative production of healthier, safer, and high-quality functional foods which are perishable or semi-perishable in nature. Nanotechnologies are superior than conventional food processing technologies with increased shelf life of food products, preventing contamination, and production of enhanced food quality. This comprehensive review on nanotechnologies for functional food development describes the current trends and future perspectives of advanced nanomaterials in food sector considering processing, packaging, security, and storage. Applications of nanotechnologies enhance the food bioavailability, taste, texture, and consistency, achieved through modification of particle size, possible cluster formation, and surface charge of food nanomaterials. In addition, the nanodelivery-mediated nutraceuticals, synergistic action of nanomaterials in food protection, and the application of nanosensors in smart food packaging for monitoring the quality of the stored foods and the common methods employed for assessing the impact of nanomaterials in biological systems are also discussed.
Medicinal plants produce valuable secondary metabolites with anticancer, analgesic, anticholinergic or other activities, but low metabolite levels and limited available tissue restrict metabolite ...yields. Transformed root cultures, also called hairy roots, provide a feasible approach for producing valuable secondary metabolites. Various strategies have been used to enhance secondary metabolite production in hairy roots, including increasing substrate availability, regulating key biosynthetic genes, multigene engineering, combining genetic engineering and elicitation, using transcription factors (TFs), and introducing new genes. In this review, we focus on recent developments in hairy roots from medicinal plants, techniques to boost production of desired secondary metabolites, and the development of new technologies to study these metabolites. We also discuss recent trends, emerging applications, and future perspectives.
Hairy roots are useful tools for studying the biosynthesis of different plant-derived valuable compounds.Hairy roots could be preferred hosts when the desired compounds mainly accumulate in roots.Hairy roots are being considered as an alternative system to microbial hosts, including Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, for producing plant-derived natural secondary metabolites because they are more similar to the native host plant.Hairy roots have emerged as valuable tools for the rapid characterization of plant gene function and enzyme activity in vivo because hairy roots naturally maintain many cofactors and precusor substrates, and the encoded plant-derived protein is more likely to be properly folded in hairy roots compared with in microbes.
Bioactive chemical constitutes from the root of
classified in two major groups, viz., liposoluble tanshinones and water-soluble phenolics. Tanshinone IIA is a major lipid-soluble compound having ...promising health benefits. The
and
studies showed that the tanshinone IIA and salvianolate have a wide range of cardiovascular and other pharmacological effects, including antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, endothelial protective, myocardial protective, anticoagulation, vasodilation, and anti-atherosclerosis, as well as significantly help to reduce proliferation and migration of vascular smooth muscle cells. In addition, some of the clinical studies reported that the
preparations in combination with Western medicine were more effective for treatment of various cardiovascular diseases including angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and pulmonary heart diseases. In this review, we demonstrated the potential applications of
, including pharmacological effects of salvianolate, tanshinone IIA, and its water-soluble derivative, like sodium tanshinone IIA sulfonate. Moreover, we also provided details about the clinical applications of
preparations in controlling the cardiovascular diseases.
The dietary polyphenols as α-glucosidases inhibitors have attracted great interest among researchers. The aim of this review is to give an overview of the research reports on the structure-activity ...relationship of dietary polyphenols inhibiting α-glucosidases. The molecular structures that influence the inhibition are the following: (1) The hydroxylation and galloylation of flavonoids including catechins improve the inhibitory activity. (2) The glycosylation of hyroxyl group and hydrogenation of the C2=C3 double bond on flavonoids weaken the inhibition. (3) However, cyaniding glycosides show higher inhibition against than cyanidin. Proanthocyanidins oligomers exhibit a stronger inhibitory activity than their polymers. (4) The hydroxylation on B ring and the glycosylation of stilbenes reduce the inhibitory activity. (5) Caffeoylquinic acids display strong inhibition against α-glucosidases. However, hydroxycinnamic acid, ferulic acid, and gallic acid hardly inhibited α-glucosidases. (6) The coupled galloyl structures attached to C-3 and C-6 of the
4
C
1
glucose core of ellagitanin gave basic inhibitory activity. (7) The mono-glycosylation of chalcones slightly lowers the inhibition. However, the diglycosylation of chalcones significantly decreased the activity.
Immune system plays a decisive role for defending various pathogenic microorganisms. Astragalus membranaceus (AM) and Panax ginseng (PG) are two tonic herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) ...as immune booster and help to control diseases with their healthy synergistic effect on immune system.
This study was aimed to investigate the promote effect and molecular mechanisms of AM and PG on immune system as booster and to control the target diseases using animal and computational systematic study.
Computational models including absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination (ADME) with weighted ensemble similarity (WES) algorithm-based models and ClueGo network analysis were used to find the potential bioactive compounds targets and pathways, which were responsible for immune regulation. Viscera index analysis, proliferation activity of splenic lymphocytes and cytotoxic activity of NK cells assays were performed to validate the effect of AM and PG on immune system of long-term administrated mice. Metabonomic study of mice plasma was conducted to investigate effect of AM and PG on the endogenous metabolic perturbations, together with correlation analysis.
AM and PG simultaneously showed the ability to strengthen the immune system function including enhancement of spleen and thymus index, proliferation of splenic lymphocytes and cytotoxic activity of NK cells. Besides, the different molecular mechanisms of AM and PG on immune regulation were also investigated by analyzing the potential bioactive compounds, enzymes actions and pathways. Quercetin, formononetin and kaempferol were the main immune-related compounds in AM, while ginsenoside Ra1, ginsenoside Rh1 and kaempferol in PG. About 10 target proteins were found close to immune regulation, including acetylcholinesterase (ACHE, common target in AM and PG), sphingosine kinase 1(SPHK1), cytidine deaminase (CDA), and Choline O-acetyltransferase (CHAT). Glycerophospholipid metabolism was regulated in both AM and PG groups. Pyrimidine metabolism and sphingolipid metabolism were considered as the special pathway in AM groups. Energy metabolism and glycerolipid metabolism were the special pathways in PG groups.
A novel comprehensive molecular mechanism analysis method was established and applied to clarify the scientific connotation of AM and PG as immune regulation, with similar herbal tonic effect provided in clinical practice of TCM, which can provide a new line of research for drug development (immune booster) using AM and PG.
The inhibitory effects of dietary polyphenols against α-amylase have attracted great interest among researchers. The aim of this review is to give an overview of the research reports on the ...structure–activity relationship of polyphenols inhibiting α-amylase. The molecular structures that influence the inhibition are the following: (1) The hydroxylation of flavonoids improved the inhibitory effect on α-amylase; (2) Presence of an unsaturated 2,3-bond in conjugation with a 4-carbonyl group has been associated with stronger inhibition; (3) The glycosylation of flavonoids decreased the inhibitory effect on α-amylase depending on the conjugation site and the class of sugar moiety; (4) The methylation and methoxylation of flavonoids obviously weakened the inhibitory effect; (5) The galloylated catechins have higher inhibition than nongalloylated catechins; the catechol-type catechins were stronger than the pyrogallol-type catechins; the inhibition activities of the catechins with 2,3-trans structure were higher than those of the catechins with 2,3-cis structure; (6) Cyanidin-3-glucoside showed higher inhibition against than cyanidin and cyanidin-3-galactoside and cyanidin-3,5-diglucoside had no inhibitory activity; (7) Ellagitannins with β-galloyl groups at glucose C-1 positions have higher inhibitory effect than the α-galloyl and nongalloyl compounds and the molecular weight of ellagitannins is not an important element.
Phenolic acids and tanshinones are important bioactive components with multiple pharmacological properties accumulated in traditional Chinese medicinal plant
Salvia miltiorrhiza
. Abscisic acid (ABA) ...is effective to enhance the content of the two compounds in
S. miltiorrhiza
, while the regulation mechanism remains unknown. Deep transcriptome profile of
S. miltiorrhiza
hairy roots treated with ABA was conducted. Totally, 42,710 unigenes with the average length of 1,157 bp were obtained from de novo assembly from about 2.81 billion produced clean reads, of which 27,641 unigenes (64.72%) were successfully annotated. Unigenes encoding key enzymes such as PAL, TAT, C4H, RAS, CYP98A14, GGPPS expressed significantly higher than that in control. Candidate laccases showing similar expression with
RAS
and
CYP98A14
in phenolic acid biosynthesis and potential P450 unigenes involved in tanshinone biosynthesis genes were screened out. Furthermore, transcription factor (TF) profiles revealed that 1,250 TFs representing 35 families were identified, of which MYB, AP2/ERF, bHLH and bZIP were most abundant. The present study provided a comprehensive transcriptional expression profile affected by ABA, which will help underly the biosynthesis and regulation mechanism.
Key message
Transcriptomic analysis of ABA-treated
Salvia miltiorrhiza
.
MYB transcription factors play vital roles in plant growth and metabolism. The phytohormone methyl jasmonate (MeJA) promotes phenolic acid accumulation in the medicinal herb Salvia miltiorrhiza, but ...the regulatory mechanism is poorly understood. Here, we identified the MeJA‐responsive R2R3‐MYB transcription factor gene SmMYB2 from a transcriptome library produced from MeJA‐treated S. miltiorrhiza hairy roots. SmMYB2 expression was tightly correlated with the expression of key salvianolic acid biosynthetic genes including CYP98A14. SmMYB2 was highly expressed in the periderm of S. miltiorrhiza and SmMYB2 localized to the nucleus. Overexpressing SmMYB2 in S. miltiorrhiza hairy roots significantly increased the levels of salvianolic acids (including rosmarinic acid and salvianolic acid B) by upregulating salvianolic acid biosynthetic genes such as CYP98A14. SmMYB2 binds to the MYB‐binding motifs in the promoter of CYP98A14, as confirmed by a dual‐luciferase assay and electrophoretic mobility shift assays. Anthocyanin contents were significantly higher in SmMYB2‐overexpressing hairy root lines than the control, primarily due to the increased expression of CHI, DFR, and ANS. These findings reveal the novel regulatory role of SmMYB2 in MeJA‐mediated phenolic acid biosynthesis, providing a useful target gene for metabolic engineering and shedding light on the salvianolic acid regulatory network.
This work uncovered a novel MeJA‐responsive R2R3‐MYB transcription factor SmMYB2 that promotes salvianolic acid biosynthesis through activating the biosynthetic gene CYP98A14 as well as increases anthocyanin accumulation by upregulating the pathway gene CHI, DFR, and ANS in an important medicinal plant Salvia miltiorrhiza.
Abstract
Water-soluble phenolic acids are major bioactive compounds in the medicinal plant species
Salvia miltiorrhiza
. Phenolic acid biosynthesis is induced by methyl jasmonate (MeJA) in this ...important Chinese herb. Here, we investigated the mechanism underlying this induction by analyzing a transcriptome library of
S. miltiorrhiza
in response to MeJA. Global transcriptome analysis identified the MeJA-responsive R2R3-MYB transcription factor-encoding gene
SmMYB1
. Overexpressing
SmMYB1
significantly promoted phenolic acid accumulation and upregulated the expression of genes encoding key enzymes in the phenolic acid biosynthesis pathway, including cytochrome P450-dependent monooxygenase (CYP98A14). Dual-luciferase (dual-LUC) assays and/or an electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSAs) indicated that SmMYB1 activated the expression of
CYP98A14
, as well as the expression of genes encoding anthocyanin biosynthesis pathway enzymes, including chalcone isomerase (CHI) and anthocyanidin synthase (ANS). In addition, SmMYB1 was shown to interact with SmMYC2 to additively promote
CYP98A14
expression compared to the action of SmMYB1 alone. Taken together, these results demonstrate that SmMYB1 is an activator that improves the accumulation of phenolic acids and anthocyanins in
S. miltiorrhiza
. These findings lay the foundation for in-depth studies of the molecular mechanism underlying MeJA-mediated phenolic acid biosynthesis and for the metabolic engineering of bioactive ingredients in
S. miltiorrhiza
.
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