Metabonomic analysis of water extracts from Chinese and American ginsengs by 1H nuclear magnetic resonance: identification of chemical profile for quality control

In this study, metabonomics, or metabolic profiling, based on the application of 1H-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), is applied to distinguish the water extracts of three closely related ginseng species: P. ginseng (from two different cultivated regions in China), P. notoginseng and P. quinquefolius.A water extraction protocol that mimics how ginseng decoctions are made for consumption was used to prepare triplicate samples from each herb for analysis. High-resolution 1H NMR spectroscopy was used to acquire metabolic profiles of the four ginseng samples. The spectral data were subjected to multivariate and univariate analysis to identify metabolites that were able to distinguish different types of ginseng.H NMR metabolic profiling was performed to distinguish the water extracts of P. ginseng cultivated in Hebei and Jilin of China, both of which were distinguished from extracts of P. notoginseng and P. quinquefolius, by unsupervised principle component analysis based on the entire 1H NMR spectral fingerprint Statistically significant differences were found for several discriminating features traced to common metabolites and the ginsenosides Rg1 and Rd, in the 1H NMR spectra.This study demonstrated that 1H NMR metabonomics can simultaneously distinguish different ginseng species and multiple samples of the same species that were cultivated in different regions. This technique is applicable to the authentication and quality control of ginseng products.The Panax L. (Araliaceae) genus consists of 12 species, including 10 from Asia and two from North America. Three species are commonly used today: Panax ginseng C.A. Mey., known as Ginseng, Renshen, or Korean Ginseng; Panax quinquefolius L., known as American Ginseng or Xiyangshen; and Panax notoginseng (Burk.) F.H. Chen, known as Notoginseng or Sanqi. While these Panax species have different clinical efficacies in Chinese medicine, they share a great deal of similarity in their chemistry and gene sequences, making their