Metabolomics reveals differences in metabolite profiles between wild and cultivated Tetrastigmae Radix

Tetrastigmae Radix (TR) is the tuber of Tetrastigma hemsleyanum Diels et Gilg, which is frequently used in Chinese folklore medicine as a therapeutic food. TR is becoming more popular because of its superior pharmacological properties, including anticancer and antioxidant properties. However, wild-TR (WTR) resources are few in the market, and cultivated-TR (CTR) is progressively replacing WTR as the primary source of commercial herbs. Furthermore, because of its diverse growing environment, CTR may differ from WTR in terms of characteristics, metabolites, and pharmacological actions. There are currently fewer investigations on the two ecotypes, and their distinctions are unclear. As a result, this study used UFLC-Triple TOF-MS/MS to undertake untargeted metabolomics analysis of CTR and WTR, and then used statistical analysis to screen for differential accumulate metabolites (DAMs). KEGG enrichment analysis was performed on the DAMs, and the active pharmaceutical DAMs in the enrichment pathway were measured using UFLC-QTRAP-MS/MS. The results reveal that 152 metabolites of 14 different categories were discovered, with flavonoids and lipids accounting for the majority of the 35 DAMs tested by OPLS-DA. Some lipids were up-regulated in the CTR, whereas flavonoids were up-regulated in the WTR; and 777 pairs of DAM metabolites exhibited significant connection based on Pearson correlation analysis. The mainly enriched pathways were flavone and flavonol biosynthesis, TCA cycle, galactose metabolism, and others. KEGG enrichment analysis revealed four active pharmaceutical metabolites in the enriched pathways, and demonstrated that their concentrations were greater in WTR than in CTR. Overall, this work used a comprehensive metabolomic analysis to provide a theoretical foundation for resource identification, diet formulation, and pharmacological studies of CTR and WTR.