Research progress on the resource development of Salvia miltiorrhiza

Research progress on the resource development of Salvia miltiorrhiza

摘要

Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge is a traditional Chinese medicine commonly used for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.It contains two kinds of effective ingredients: fat soluble diterpene quinones and water soluble phenolic compounds.It shows significant effects including anti bacterial, anti inflammatory, anti thrombotic, hepato protective, and antioxidant properties and protection against myocardial ischemia.However, extraction of active components from S.miltiorrhiza directly is challenging due to low purity.Furthermore, the limited material resources of S.miltiorrhiza affect its utility in clinical medicine and the sustainable exploitation of natural drugs.In order to overcome this challenge, chemistry, molecular biology and other scientific technologies are being explored to improve the yield and quality of S.miltiorrhiza, with considerable progress made to date.Firstly, a variety of tanshinone and salvianolic acid compounds have been synthesized successfully from S.miltiorrhiza, while compounds such as tanshinone IIA have been structure modified to improve solubility and bioavailability.Secondly, biological technologies such as induction of polyploidy, cell suspension culture, and the induction of hairy roots have been developed.Hairy root of S.miltiorrhiza, which is most widely used at present, can be manufactured on a large scale and harvested using a spherical gas lifted bioreactor.Additionally, due to good genetic and chemical stability of the hairy root, it can be used as a research model for further development of S.miltiorrhiza.Thirdly, a variety of biotic and abiotic elicitors have been exploited for the study of effective components of S.miltiorrhiza, which have different effects on the plant.Appropriate combinations of these elicitors could further improve the yield of active components of S.miltiorrhiza.Finally, with the development of molecular biology, secondary metabolite engineering has become a new hotspot of medicinal plant research.S.miltiorrhiza is confirmed as a model to study terpenoid metabolism, wi