Notoginseng, the root of Panax notoginseng (Burk.) F. H. Chen (P. notoginseng), also called Sanqi or Sanchi, is a precious traditional Chinese medical drug which has a history of medical use for over 400 years. The main actude saponins, dencichine, flavonoids, polysaccharides and fatty acids, etc. (Wang et al., 2006, 2016). Although some non-saponin constitutents exhibit hemostasis, neuroprotective and immunity activities (Huang et al., 2014 Jia et al., 2014), a majority of the pharmacological functions of notoginseng are basically attributed to its saponin components (Shi et al., 2016). Contemporary research have discovered that Panax notoginseng saponins (PNS) can be effective in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases (Yang X. et al., 2014), such as atherosclerosis (Liu G. et al., 2009), hypertension (Pan et al., 2012), myocardial ischemia (Han et al., 2013), and aortic intimal hyperplasia (Wu et al., 2010), etc. Moreover, PNS also possesses th... See full list on Dammarane-Type Saponins in Raw P. notoginseng So far extensive researches have been performed on the identification and analysis of saponins in raw P. notoginseng. The nomenclatures of the saponins isolated from P. notoginseng are generally ginsenoside and notoginsenoside. One distinguishing feature of notoginseng is that all of the saponins can be classified into PPD, PPT or their derivative types. However, the saponins profiles in different medicinal parts, e.g., root, rhizome, stem, flower, and leaf, etc., of notoginseng are of huge d... The Processing of P. notoginseng The processing of traditional Chinese medical drug is a national heritage of a Chinese medicinal culture. The purpose of processing can be classified into four points: (1) eliminating or alleviating the toxi and side effects (2) changing the medicinal properties (3) being convenient for formulation and storage (4) cleaning the medical drug. In the case of P. notoginseng, the medicinal properties are altered upon the processing, i.e., baking, steaming, boiling and frying according to li... Saponins Produced in Processed P. notoginseng With the processing of notoginseng, some originally existed saponins will be degraded, accompanied by the geneuding quite a number of saponin stereoisomers. A series of measurements of HPLC-DAD, LC-MS/MS, LC-QTOFMS and NMR, etc., have been performed on the identification of saponins. Although some of the newly generated saponins are regarded as biomarkers for processed notoginseng, not much emphasis has been put on the presence of stereoismeric saponins so fa... See full list on Pharmacological Difference Between Raw and Processed P. notoginseng In traditional Chinese medical applications, processed notoginseng is distinguished from raw notoginseng by the claim of its capability to “nourish” blood (Medicine SAoTC, 1996). So far, not many contemporary researches have been performed to focus on the pharmacological difference between these two types of herbs, however, some research reports have still revealed that processed notoginseng exhibit more potent pharmaceutical activities than raw notoginseng, such as anticancer, antiplatelet a... Stereospecific Pharmacological Effects of 20(S)- and 20(R)-Rg3 Ginsenoside Rg3 is one of the most biologically potent saponins in P. notoginseng, which exerts a wide scope of pharmacological actions, e.g., anti-inflammatory (Park et al., 2012), anti-tumor (Kim Y.-J. et al., 2014), antioxidant (Wei et al., 2012b), anti-diabetic (Ju et al., 2012 Kim S.S. et al., 2014), and neuroprotective (Lee B. et al., 2013) activities. Extensive research have revealed that ginsenoside Rg3 displays a wide spectrum of anticancer activities in the treatment of colon, lung... Stereospecific Effects of Other Saponin Stereoisomers Except for ginsenoside Rg3, other stereoisomeric saponins have also been found to exhibit stereospecific pharmacological activities. For example, 20(S)-/20(R)-Rh2, the metabolites of 20(S)-/20(R)-Rg3, have also been studied on the stereospecific effects in their antitumor, anti-photoaging, anti-inflammatory, antioxidative, matrix metalloproteinase inhibitory and osteoclastgenesis inhibitory effects (Liu J. et al., 2009 Choi et al., 2013 Fatmawati et al., 2014 Oh et al., 2014). Compared wit... See full list on Saponin stereoisomers are proved to exhibit different phuding absorption, distribution, and metabolism. Bae et al. (2013) developed a LC-MS/MS method for simultaneous determination of Rg3 and Rh2 epimers, and the method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study after oral administration of fermented ginseng extract in rats. 20(S)-epimers of both Rg3 and Rh2 showed significantly higher plasma concentrations and area under curve (AUC) values compared with their corresponding 20(R)-epimers. It can be inferred that 20(R)-epimers of Rg3 and Rh2 have lower membrane permeability and poorer absorption. Moreover, the absorption profiles of 20(S)-Rh2 was proved to be better than those of 20(R)-Rh2, partly because 20(R)-Rh2 performs more potent ABC-transporter-mediated efflux (Gu et al., 2010). Moreover, Bae et al. found that Bacteroides sp., Eubacterium sp., and Bifidobacterium sp. isolated from human fecal microflora can metabolize Rg3 to PPD via R... See full list on Panax notoginseng is a traditional Chinese medical drug rich in dammarane-type tetracyclic triterpenoid saponins. Some naturally existed major saponins will be deglycosylated or dehydrated to become secondary saponins during the heating processing of P. notoginseng. Researches on the chemical components of raw and processed notoginseng indicate that the transformation of compound basis is the basic reason for the changes in their pharmacological effects. A majority of these secondary saponins are stereoisomeric saponins which have been tentatively assigned to be “biomarkers” in processed notoginseng. Available investigations rly different pharmacological activities, pharmacokinetic behaviors exhibits between two saponin stereoisomers. The phenomenon of stereoisomerism has gained great attention on chemical drugs by many pharmaceutical enterprises. A very famous example is the disaster caused by thalidomide in 1960s in pharmaceutical history. 8000–12... See full list on TZ and YD formulated the study concept and design of the paper. MP prepared the Tables 2–6. MP and YY acquired the data, draw the Figure 1 and Table 1, and drafted the manuscript. JL guided the critical revision of the manuscript and provided important intellectual content. All authors reviewed the manuscript, agreed to all the contents, and agreed the submission. See full list on This work was supported by the Programs of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. and) Project of the Committee of Science and Technology (Grant No.) Youth Talent Sail Plan from Committee of Science and Technology (Grant No. 14YF1411300) Project of the Municipal Health and Family Planning Commission (Grant Nos. 20134Y053, 2017YQ072, and) Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of (Grant No. B201703) and Xinglin Scholar Plan. See full list on The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or ficial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. See full list on
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